DS Question with the GET ALLIANCE function

Technical NI LabVIEW
1

I found this function in the WPI DS pallete(GET ALLIANCE) and I was wondering if FIRST competions will dispatch the signal to enable this. Also, will this be used for tele or/and auton?:confused:

Thanks:)

2

I believe this is always filled in and up to date.

Greg McKaskle

3

Did anybody use this function (either in Labview or C++)? If so, was the data reliable? Were there any alliance or field position errors? I believe these are entered into the FMS by humans, and the alliance would probably be right every time (or everyone would know). How about the field position?

4

You found a use for your robot knowing which Driverā€™s Station your team is at?

5

Nevermind.

6

We were going to use the ā€œPositionā€ property to select different autonomous routines depending upon the value. At the DC regional we were told by the people running the FMS that there was no correlation between the ā€œPositionā€ value and actual starting position on the field. Since alliances determine starting position among themselves prior to each match, this data would have to have been entered manually prior to each match.

7

We will use it to determine which trailer to track with the camera.

8

Is there any way to simulate the field control (setting alliance) so I could test without switching my code back to a switch? I currently have code defaulting to red unless the get alliance returns blue (anything else will set to red).

9

You want the FMS Light software. Links are at http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc/content.aspx?id=10934 near the bottom of the page.

10

This is exactly what I was going to suggest, except, I have not verified if this will work on the same PC you are programming with.

Alan, or anyone else for that matter,
Do you have experience testing this function with FMS Light? If so, can you give us a quick rundown of the procedure you used? Iā€™m certain we could figure it out on Practice day, but if we had a verified procedure to follow, it could save us a lot of trial and error.

11

get alliance worked for my team at midwest regional, for choosing which flag orientation to go after. We displayed the alliance setting in our dashboard so we could verify it was set correctly. Out of paranoia, our programmers allocated joystick buttons to override in case the field system didnā€™t work, but they didnā€™t need them.

12

I would like to know what does the function GET ALLIANCE returns in the alliance output, anyone knows a number, a bolean a string ???
if my team is RED it returns 1? or 0? or RED?
thanks

13

It returns an ā€œenumā€ of either ā€œRedā€ or ā€œBlueā€.

To see this your self, put the vi into your project. Connect the output you want to a case structure. Hit ā€œCtrl+Hā€ to bring up the Context Help, then put your cursor over the output of interest.