NI Week Athena Announcement and Q&A Panel

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Can you elaborate? Every rookie?

I expect that the cRio will not be considered part of the legal control system starting in 2015. That doesn't stop you from using it on a practice bot, just like teams used the old IFI control system for non-competition robots after the cRio came out.

[GarroH]

Originally Posted by cgmv123

Your robot always fails when it matters the most! (Pesky radio!)

Haha, as one of the students on stage operating the robot, I can tell you that it wasn't actually the radio's fault. Our computer opened up some bizarre program that I didn't know how to close so space bar was my first reaction, which, as you know, is the E-Stop. This meant that I had to power-cycle the robot and wait for the cRIO reboot. Whoops.

[apalrd]

Originally Posted by magnets

NI said that Java was an arcane language, and was part of the problem with current education is that students learn it, yet they are going to be announcing a controller that will probably work with Java.
There's a feature to zoom in the NXT programming language, but STILL NO ZOOM IN LABVIEW

-I agree with those thoughts on Java. Nothing against Java as a language, but IMO every introduction to programming I've seen for students that works in Java primarily teaches the concepts of object-oriented programming and Java syntax before actual programming concepts in general. I don't think OO is the only way to program, and a class that starts and only touches Java will promote a much more closed way of thinking about programming

-Every day I work in Simulink, I'm like 'man this is a big subsystem, I should zoom in' and then I zoom in. And then later I zoom out. AND THEN I GO BACK TO LABVIEW AND CANT ZOOM.



@everyone, Thoughts on the new controller:
-I think the expansion port is great for packaging, and allows plenty of additional IO, but I think it's going to be JUST that - a place where you can plug in a break out board to use the additional PWM/GPIO/ADC signals when you need them. I don't think more than a few teams will actually make something else for this port. Maybe a company or two, but basically no teams.
--I'm not worried about enough IO, but a few more ADC's would be nice for extra datalogging. Buzz18 uses 5 of 7 and Buzz 17 used 6 of 7, and it's nice to look at other analog signals every now and then. I also wonder if the 5v/3.3v supply is monitored by the ADC separately because we like to look at that for diagnostics, and previously used a jumper in adc7 to do this, which consumes an analog channel.

-The spec lists integrated 3-axis accelerometer. I wonder why they didn't include a gyro on this, since a gyro is definitely a way more useful sensor for FRC. I have never found a use for a chassis-mounted accelerometer in FRC.

-No spec on boot times as far as I can tell. Dissappointing. The radio issue demonstrated by 2468 almost made a joke out of the current boot times.

-OS is listed as RT Linux, which will definitely make some people very happy, but I don't really care that much. I still think we're brute-forcing the CPU loading issues rather than considering efficient design in quite a few places (outside of user code).

-Hopefully the download times improved. They were just purely awful this year. I know that was because of a LV RT bug, but it's still totally unacceptable in every way that it made it past testing like that.

-Maybe if I can get one early enough it'll push me to design something better. Who knows. But releasing software on kickoff is just crazy, I mean we really do have to install LV and new Driver Station and new Utilities on a whole bunch of computers, and there isn't even anything game related in a new version of software. I too would like to see the new controller and software in my hand at least 6mos before 2015 kickoff.

[Clinton Bolinger]

Originally Posted by apalrd

But releasing software on kickoff is just crazy, I mean we really do have to install LV and new Driver Station and new Utilities on a whole bunch of computers, and there isn't even anything game related in a new version of software. I too would like to see the new controller and software in my hand at least 6mos before 2015 kickoff.

Sounds like a great question for Friday with Frank or the Q&A later today.

Cross the Road Electronics is also going to have a CAN pneumatic device that will take care of the Compressor, Pressure Switch and 8 solenoids (12v OR 24v not both).

http://i.imgur.com/276hmyB.jpg

Pneumatic Controller from IRI 2013

-Clinton-

[magnets]

Originally Posted by Clinton Bolinger

Sounds like a great question for Friday with Frank or the Q&A later today.

Cross the Road Electronics is also going to have a CAN pneumatic device that will take care of the Compressor, Pressure Switch and 8 solenoids (12v OR 24v not both).

http://i.imgur.com/276hmyB.jpg

Pneumatic Controller from IRI 2013

-Clinton-

This is not good. The eight solenoid control really only allows for 4 solenoids, as the double solenoids require two channels to operate. With the relays it will allow for a total of 8 double solenoids. I know that 118 has used more than this in the past, and 236's bump thing used 8 just for their wheels, plus 2 or 3 more on the rest of the bot.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by magnets

This is not good. The eight solenoid control really only allows for 4 solenoids, as the double solenoids require two channels to operate. With the relays it will allow for a total of 8 double solenoids. I know that 118 has used more than this in the past, and 236's bump thing used 8 just for their wheels, plus 2 or 3 more on the rest of the bot.

As the device runs on CAN, I would assume you can utilize more than one of the devices on the robot at a time. From what I've seen inspecting, a majority of teams don't need more than 4 double solenoids. Since you have to draw the line somewhere (4, 8, 20, whatever), why not keep the whole thing as small as possible while making it all most teams need? The teams that need more will get more by adding more boards.

[Clinton Bolinger]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

As the device runs on CAN, I would assume you can utilize more than one of the devices on the robot at a time. From what I've seen inspecting, a majority of teams don't need more than 4 double solenoids. Since you have to draw the line somewhere (4, 8, 20, whatever), why not keep the whole thing as small as possible while making it all most teams need? The teams that need more will get more by adding more boards.

What Jon said +1.

Also, teams can use single acting Solenoids and reduce the number of outputs needed. As long as they are comfortable with having a default state of their cylinder, that will actuate at the end of the match or loss of comms.

The CTRE device is replacing the current solenoid module that has 8 outputs, but allows for easier (and less weight) expansion of more outputs.

-Clinton-

[dellagd]

Q&A Starting!

[Steven Donow]

From the Q&A, there will be an expansion port for your own electronics/more analog inputs.

[Gregor]

• Deploying over USB will be available.
  
• LabVIEW Pro Edition, Java SE, and C++ 11 will be used.
  
• Both Ethernet and USB radios are compatible, they are still testing to find which radio will be used.
  
• Ethernet cameras (i.e. Axis cameras), USB camera (less expensive), and even commercial cameras (high quality).
  
• Targeting low $400s in price, and expecting for it to eventually lower in the future. Expect a more firm answer at the 2014 Championship.
  
• The Kinect will be available to interface directly to the RoboRIO, but NI doesn't plan on including native support.
  
• Reverse polarity protection +- 12V
  
• Library level (not processor level) software simulator.
  
• Additional diagnostic tools will be available in the driverstation for teams, and in the FMS for event staff.
  
• RoboRIO will have conformal coating.
  
• 1 RoboRIO will be available per team at a reduced rate once per year, additional units will be at the academic price.

[cgmv123]

Kate won't say whether the roboRIO is even allowed for 2015.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by magnets

This is not good. The eight solenoid control really only allows for 4 solenoids, as the double solenoids require two channels to operate. With the relays it will allow for a total of 8 double solenoids. I know that 118 has used more than this in the past, and 236's bump thing used 8 just for their wheels, plus 2 or 3 more on the rest of the bot.

The relay outputs onboard are intended to drive a spike I imagine, if they are keeping with the nomenclature of the sidecar (and the fact that they are three pins confirms this).

Driving pneumatics off a spike is doable, but really doesn't make any sense in this era.

The CAN based pneumatics bumper would presumably allow effectively unlimited for FRC sake.

Also, no way 236 used more than 8 solenoids for that motion. I just don't see enough going on for that.

[magnets]

Originally Posted by apalrd

-

-The spec lists integrated 3-axis accelerometer. I wonder why they didn't include a gyro on this, since a gyro is definitely a way more useful sensor for FRC. I have never found a use for a chassis-mounted accelerometer in FRC.

A gyro would have trouble if a team decided to mount their control system vertically, or if they didn't put the controller in the center of the robot. Every year we get these accelerometers in the KoP, and I still have no idea what to do with them. We have like 10.

Also, I feel like the 500% increase in processing power was a bit unnecessary, but it's going to be cool to work with a dual core ARM Cortex processor.

Looking at the spec sheet, we can now use both ethernet and USB connected cameras, but their is no use listed for the USB device port.

Some questions:
-Do we have a jumper for the 6V servo power?
-The spec sheet lists specs for both a 5V and 3.3V supplies. Where are they, and can we use them? The old DSC had two extra pins for the 5V supply next to the DIO, but I don't see a way to get 5V from here without using one +5 pins on a DIO.
-How do we know which of the pins in the "custom electronics" connector do which things?
-The picture of the pcb shows a 5V/3.3V selection jumper, but it can't be seen from the new pictures. What does this select?

[bardd]

Originally Posted by magnets

-Do we have a jumper for the 6V servo power?

There aren't any jumper ports... I hope we won't need a separate board for them.

[protoserge]

Originally Posted by magnets

A gyro would have trouble if a team decided to mount their control system vertically, or if they didn't put the controller in the center of the robot. Every year we get these accelerometers in the KoP, and I still have no idea what to do with them. We have like 10.

Also, I feel like the 500% increase in processing power was a bit unnecessary, but it's going to be cool to work with a dual core ARM Cortex processor.

USB Host + ARM processing power... Definitely not unnecessary. Now you can hook your Kinect directly to the robot controller and do image processing.