I was wondering if any team/person has come up with any programs for this years season for the palm pilot? If you have I’d love to try it out. Reply with a post or email me [email protected]
Team 624 has developed a scoring/strategy program to be used in real time during a competition. Not only does it keep score but it more importantly supplies the alliance with suggested actions to maintain a lead while maximizing qualifying points taking into account the positions of the goals, robots, and ball counts. It operates in several stages depending on the time of the match—in the first 30 seconds, it suggests actions to maximize the score difference, in the middle 1 minute, it maximizes the opp. score while maintaining the lead, and in the last 30 seconds, advises the alliance on which endzone to put their robots depending on the score difference. It’s a very useful program that has helped our alliances a great deal. It runs on laptops and Pocket PCs (Casios and Compaq IPAQs). I don’t know anything about writing programs for the PALM, but please contact me for more information on the scoring/strategy program.
whoops, forgot to include an e-mail address in that last post, my e-mail address is [email protected]
Timothy Hsu
Team #65, has developed a palm operating scouting database. If you would like a copy we have no problem with you having one. Just give us an email!!!
www.SOAP108.com has developed a Java applet that allows you to keep score on a java-enabled mobile phone.
Hey everyone, I’ve posted up online a copy of the Team 624 scoring/strategy program. It is available here:
http://scoring.cincorobotics.com/
Read the tutorial—you’ll need to especially read the last part.
Wildstang’s W.A.S.H.
(Wildstang Application for Scouting with Handhelds)
Team 111 is moving beyond the days of entering scouting information with a pen and paper, then entering the data into a central computer. We’re developing a system that simplifies the process, decreases the risk of error, and makes more efficient use of the scout’s time. WASH allows scouts to use PalmOS handhelds to enter data and upload it directly to the central WASH database. From there, all data gets uploaded to SOAP where it is available to the entire FIRST community. WASH will gather data on every robot for each round it participates in. WASH be getting data such as the team’s primary role during the match and how well they performed it; how well a robot handled balls and/or goals; how well the driver and drive system performed; and a few other useful bits of data. WASH is looking for teams who are willing to take shifts scouting at Western Michigan, Midwest, and especially Nationals in order to get coverage of all five playing fields. Team 308 and 470 has already volunteered to help us out at the Midwest Regional and at Nationals. If any teams are able to lend some help for scouting, then they will be able to review crutial strategical information for their matches.
So, please, contact:
Mike Soukup
[email protected]
And
Armando Gomez
[email protected]
for more information.
http://www.wildstang.com
Armando, thanks for posting info on WASH, but in the future please let students and adults on the WASH team do the advertising.
Now to fix some inaccuracies in the post:
- Team 111 will run WASH at Mot Midwest, but 470 and 308 will not be helping out there. They helped out at GLR this past weekend.
- Team 74 is running WASH at West MI, and has a few teams lined up to help there.
- I am the one coordinating all the WASH scouting at various regionals and at nationals, so please only contact me ([email protected]) if you would like to join us in this scouting effort. Multiple points of contact is usually a disaster.
- The information on our team’s website is from last year. We have been working on a FAQ for a while, but have been too busy with real work to finish it.
Mike
FYI,
I’ve spent some time in coding up a visual scoring program for the Palm. The app draws the field on the screen and allows you to move pictures of the goals, robots, and tether bot’s around the field with a drag of the pen. Tap on the upper half of a goal to add balls and conversely on the lower half to remove balls. A tap on a robot will reveal a little tether bot that can be moved around. Tap on the tether bot to make it go away.
The score is automatically calculated for a best-case/worst-case scoring. To see this in action, place any field element over a zone boundary with the high score in each case highlighted.
Qual points can be computed in place of the raw score.
Also a “trace” capability exists. Check the box and now lines are left behind each object as it’s moved around. Handy for explaining strategy to others.
Lastly, the screen can be oriented horizontally or vertically. The latter is better for on-field members of the team.
The latest version is 1.5. I’ve been uploading it to the white papers section of the forum (I’m sure the 3 revisions I’ve made in the last 18 hours have been a little taxing on the moderators).
If you/your team ends up using the program and find problems or have suggestions please let me know. There’s still time before Florida!
Bryan
For those of you who have downloaded v1.5 of my palm program, I’ve added some more improvements (writing in the score directly, allowing the use of the up/down button on the palm, moving groups of objects at the same time, and a small manual!).
The newest version is now 1.6. Have fun!
Bryan
Team 151
I’m very impressed by the app you wrote, and from the size of the prc, it looks like you coded it from scratch. I’m just getting into palm programming (started a few months ago) and haven’t tried graphics yet. Was the app easy to code? How long did it take? What language? Any chance of me getting a copy to look over? 
Mike
Hi Mike,
Yes the program was coded from scratch. I’ve had the development environment kicking around under my desk at home for the last three years. It wasn’t until one of the students said “wouldn’t this be a nice idea…” about three/four weeks ago that I finally cracked open the box and put it to use.
The app was initially coded in C, but after the first week, the code had grown enough for me to see that I’d have maintainability problems in less than a week and then recoded everything in C++ which it still is now.
It’s just a shame I wasn’t really able to get a viable prc out until the week of our regional (UTC), but frankly I thought I wouldn’t have something ready until Florida.
In terms of the coding effort, the game rules are simple enough except for how to score the (muttering) tethers. (I kept asking myself is a "tetherBot a field object or does a field object have a tetherBot?) What really became painful to think about was maintaining an object hierarchy and dealing with bitmap window refreshing. This is kinda the problem with C++ and C. I had a C version out in just a few days of starting, yet it took me about a week in setting up the C++ version knowing what I had already done and proven out in C!
As you can tell, I’ve spent probably a little too much time staring at the screen. I’ll upload the source files for interested parties to take a look at (later). I’m not going to say exactly when as I feel obligated to add a whole bunch more comments than I have in there now. As a software engineer by training I did follow the rules for variable naming, whitespace, and the like, but there are never enough comments!
Here is the source code as promised. [Moderators-If you wish to move it into the white papers area, that’s fine by me.]
For those of you who compile and modify the source code, please try and use a new creator code (see the Palm website) as the one in there is now registered to me.
For those of you who have actually downloaded the prc and find the program useful… Code is now in place to display a team number instead of the box with R1, R2, B1, or B2, but I’m not sure how to let the user enter the team number and then reset it. Suggestions will be welcome.
Bryan
zonezealsrc.zip (111 KB)
zonezealsrc.zip (111 KB)
I can’t find the resources file that describes the gui. I found the header that gets generated from it, but not the file itself.
I’ll take a look at the code after the season (way too much work now), and I’ll also clean up my WASH palm database and publish that code.
Mike
Right. Let’s say we try that again…
zonezealsrc.zip (119 KB)
zonezealsrc.zip (119 KB)