Parallax is OUT : DrJoe is IN

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Posted by Joe Johnson at 12/18/2000 9:53 PM EST


Engineer on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.



Hi all,

I was just bothering Cindy Abrams at FIRST again today, she is the big cheese when it comes to the Kickoff Agenda. I was calling her to beg her make room on Friday for a presentation on PRACTICAL PBASIC PROGRAMMING given by me and for a presentation on MOTOR SELECTION given by an excellent colleague of mine, Mike Ciavaglia (approx. pronouncation 'chi-VOL-ee-a').

During that call, I discovered that Parallax had to cancel for one reason or another AND... ...yours truly could take the slot! Having the camel's nose under the tent, getting agreement to allow the Motors Selection Seminar was only a formality.

Bottom line, I will be filling the Parallax time slot with what I hope will be a more FIRST focused program, and Mike will be doing an upgraded and expanded version of the presentation he gave at our Chief Delphi Institute (held at lunch time of our Chief Delphi Invitational). We hope to see you there.

Joe J.

[archiver]

Posted by Joe Johnson at 12/18/2000 10:08 PM EST


Engineer on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.


In Reply to: Parallax is OUT : DrJoe is IN
Posted by Joe Johnson on 12/18/2000 9:53 PM EST:



The presentation I am giving is still a work in progress, but below is my working agenda. I would appreciate any ideas for stuff that I should cover that seems to be missing from the agenda.

Thanks in advance.

Joe J.

. The BIG PICTURE
. Non-Programming steps that make your programming life easier
. 101 useful PBASIC functions that are of no use at all to you!
. HEX is your friend
. the consequences of 16 bit unsigned math
. tips to conserve RAM and ROM space
. the dangers and delights of Debug statements
. scaling potentiometer values
. scaling PWM output values
. 'MIN 0' and other statements that should work but don't
. timing issues -- ways to tell if you are close to the edge
. pot calibration and adjustment
. Zen and the Art of limiting ()'s
. feedback loops as means of obtaining smooth robot arm motion
. The Dashboard -- your friend in need
. practical magic
. etc.

[archiver]

Posted by Mike Gray at 12/20/2000 7:53 AM EST


Engineer on team HOT from Huron Valley Schools sponsored by GM Milford Proving Ground.


In Reply to: Working Agenda for PRACTICAL PBASIC PROGRAMMING
Posted by Joe Johnson on 12/18/2000 10:08 PM EST:



Wow, you've got a lot to cover! If you can fit it in, I would suggest adding practical examples of AND, OR, and XOR bitwise operators. Especially XOR.

Looking forward to your presentation!

[archiver]

Posted by Joe Johnson at 12/20/2000 9:35 AM EST


Engineer on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.


In Reply to: Re: Working Agenda for PRACTICAL PBASIC PROGRAMMING
Posted by Mike Gray on 12/20/2000 7:53 AM EST:



I like these operators and I hate them.

They make the code unreadable at times.

I find the variable.bitN and the alias commands to eliminate most of the need for bit masks.

The one place that I like it is if you have switches that are at the end of hard stops for motor (especially relays). If you set up your switch bits and your relays right, you can do a very elegant bitwise XOR in the output statement that performs the off at the end of travel function.

It has saved us from an insane program on a number of occasions, though as we get better at programming we need that feature less and less.

In any case, I will think about how to include bitwise operators in the presentation.

Joe J.

[archiver]

Posted by Matt Berube at 12/19/2000 9:30 AM EST


Engineer on team #49, Delphi Knights, from Buena Vista High School and Delphi Automotive.


In Reply to: Parallax is OUT : DrJoe is IN
Posted by Joe Johnson on 12/18/2000 9:53 PM EST:



Dr. Joe

I think you are providing a wonderful service by hosting this workshop and I would very much like to attend. Unfortunately I cannot go to the kick-off and we can't seem to work out a way to get a team member to your workhop.

Is there a way that you could make your presentation materials available to all the teams?


Thanks,
Matt Berube
Team 49

[archiver]

Posted by Joe Johnson at 12/19/2000 9:35 AM EST


Engineer on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.


In Reply to: Class Notes?
Posted by Matt Berube on 12/19/2000 9:30 AM EST:



Matt,

We will post the presentation on our web site in the 'white papers' section. It will not really do the presentation justice in that I speak about 100mph and most of the good stuff comes out of my mouth not off the page, but for what it is worth, we will post it.

Joe J.