Hello. I’m a high school student with zero experience with FRC. I found an old FRC robot from 2011 at school. The teacher said I could have it. I was wanting to use it to drive around in. I was wanting to use my Logitech Wingman Extreme (found here) that I had sitting around that I wanted to hook directly to the robot (I don’t have any wireless networking equipment.) The robot has mecanum drive. I have no idea how to program it or where to begin. I did a little research and found out that it uses Jaguar Motor Controllers, and the old cRIO system. I’m okay with rewiring the existing components on the robot. I was wondering if I could get any help with coding and wiring, all will be appreciated!
To jump in here early, you’ve asked a VERY broad question.
If you can provide some pictures of the robot configuration, I’m sure the kind folks around here will be able to provide more accurate guidance.
I do not have access to the robot currently, but this is pretty much the same setup for the drive-trainhttp://absolutezeroelectricity.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/mecanum-1024x711.png
Read some of what’s in that thread. Good luck!
Depending on how complete the control system of the robot is, you may have a tough time. There’s not an easy way to control it directly using a joystick, because the software on the cRIO stops the robot from moving unless it receives special signals from the driver station software on a laptop.
So the robot has a cRIO and motor controllers. You’re like halfway there. Do you have workable batteries? If so, do all the lights turn on when you turn on the breaker? Does it even have a PDB (fuse board?) Does it have aradio?
I can obtain a battery, it has the PDB, no radio. As for the joystick, I might be able to use and old laptop, if I can control the robot through an ethernet cable instead of wirelessly, if not, I have an Arduino Uno with a few joystick shields (if it’s possible to use that)
Laptop is probably your best bet. Ethernet works, but it has to be a crossover cable (can someone confirm, I only had one year with the cRIO.)
Here’s the documentation for the 2014 control system.
You’ll need to install the driver station software at a minimum. After that I would do a cursory inspection of the robot to make sure there aren’t any serious shorts or anything unsafe. After that, plug in the battery and see which lights blink. If the robot’s not in perfect shape (wires undone, etc) you’ll have a bit of a job ahead of you debugging that with no experience.
Just to confirm, this is an FRC-ish battery that can handle the kind of sustained current that these robots draw?
Cool find.
I would look around hard for the old laptop with the old drivers station on it. The robot probably has the old code intact. You will need a radio and it will need to be configured. Search 2011 FRC Wpilib to find some info.
also this
http://team358.org/files/programming/ControlSystem2009-/2011-How_to_Configure_Your_Radio_Rev_A.pdf
good luck
Depends on if the laptop has is new enough to have an auto-switching Ethernet port or if there is still a router (radio) on the robot itself. This is also from back in the days of static IPs so you’ll have to know the IP range for the team it was set to.
Actually, thinking back, was 2011 the year we used the “Blue Box” driver stations or was that prior to 2011? If the robot was coded to run on a “Blue Box”, you might be SOL without it, as the code will likely not be compatible.
Another thing you might run into is if the joystick you’re using is different from what it was programmed to use, you may find it difficult to control as the Axis and buttons may be mapped wrong for your controller.
Generally when it comes to old robots the best thing to do is leave the original controls as intact as possible, or at the very least reprogram it at the end of the season while you still have the code to run off a simplified controller (like a single gamepad).
My previous team (703) still has their 2005 robot running for demos (with minimal maintenance in the past 10 years I might add), but if something ever happened to the either the board on the robot or the driver station they would basically have to replace all the old electronics because no one around today would have any idea how to reprogram another controller.
That was '09, which explains why you don’t remember it.* Using a laptop will be fine.
*For those that don’t get the joke, there are several years that many people claim never existed. '01, '09, and '15 are all on that (non-existent?) list.
Can you clarify, I are you hoping to drive around while inside/on top of the robot? Because I would be professor buzz kill and recommend against that with a 6 yr old robot that you know very little about its robustness
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Posting a photo of said robot would be immensely helpful.
If the cRIO proves to be unsalvageable, you could always consider wiring up an RC system. Andymark sells a Mecanum Mixer unit packaged with a 6 channel RC remote.
Of course, if there are manipulator systems, that could complicate things… but if you are just trying to drive the robot, this may work for you.
Don’t worry, I only weigh 105 lbs. I sat on the robot to make sure it wouldnt buckle under my weight, it seemed fine.
It would probably be much easier to use this mecanum mixer from AndyMark instead of trying to program it. If you used this the drive would be all set and it has 3 more channels that you could connect to any other actuators.
I’m trying to post an image, but it won’t let me. I also can’t get a shareable link because this is a school computer. Any ideas?
Do you happen to know the team number for the robot? IF so we might be able to find a picture by searching it.
2751 SPARK Robotics
Not at the moment, this robot was built for the LOGOMOTION competition.