I understand that the supplier for the new RoboRIOs, AndyMark, was behind schedule in the making of the new RIO for this years event. Me and my team were wondering however if they had caught up to the demand of the competing teams, and if it was possible to perhaps order another to practice with before the build season actually begins.
Thank you for your help. :]
The roboRIO is only available for pre-order right now, but will be shipping to teams who order one in early December. You can pre-order one here to guarantee that you will receive it as soon as possible:
http://www.andymark.com/product-p/am-3000pre.htm
According to the following AndyMark page:
http://www.andymark.com/product-p/am-3000.htm
When can we purchase a spare roboRIO?
You can order one today if you are part of a FIRST Robotics Team, but we will not have them to ship until early December 2014.
You can buy them now, they just won’t ship for another few weeks or so.
They also won’t have the FRC specific OS or programming until FIRST releases that separately, probably at Kickoff.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that National Instruments makes the RoboRIO; pretty sure AndyMark just retails them.
You are correct. AndyMark can not ship the roboRIOs until December because that is when they will be received from NI.
No OS either? That’s seems odd, and is rather annoying.
If they are like the beta hardware then they will come with an OS. It remains to be seen if FIRST will make the various tools and updates available to non-beta teams prior to Kickoff but I suspect they will.
Production began quite some time ago, in late summer I believe. The boot loader, and OS that are on them was based on the myRIO product and on the alpha testing. They will need to be reimaged before being used in FRC, but I believe there is plenty to explore as it is shipped.
Greg McKaskle
Does that include the HAL?
I’m not sure I understand the question.
The HAL is library element, not OS. It will not be there until WPILib is installed.
The LabVIEW HAL is the Rock Robotics/System folder. It is also part of the WPILib installation.
Greg McKaskle
Thanks, that answered the question. I wasn’t sure if the HAL was considered part of wpilib or part of the OS based on the myRIO and on the Alpha testing.
Thank you for all the replies guys, a great help. Good luck getting ready for the build season. 