Category Archive for ‘FIRST FRC’ at VI Shots

“FIRST has selected the National Instruments CompactRIO embedded control platform as its next-generation FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) robot controller. With this platform, high school students will create advanced robots starting in the 2009 FIRST season. Students can program their robots based on CompactRIO in either NI LabVIEW graphical programming software or the ANSI C language.” National Instruments announced at the 08′ FIRST Championship in Atlanta, Georgia today.

I’m here in Atlanta today covering the FIRST Championship. Todays announcement from National Instruments and FIRST is breathing new life into the successful robotics competition. Everyone is excited about using the new hardware and even more excited at the chance to use LabVIEW as the programming language. I want to stress that this is a multimillion dollar donation of materials over the next five years to FIRST to provide the CompactRIO system to participating teams. Several key technology suppliers have collaborated with NI to provide the components required to build the CompactRIO control system, including Analog Devices, Boston Engineering, ChipX, Dove Electronics, Freescale, MSI, Texas Instruments, TTI, Westak, Wind River, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), and Xilinx.

Quoting NI’s official press release:

“Our goal is to have a FIRST team in every high school and to change the culture in our communities to celebrate excellence in science and engineering the same way we celebrate sports,” said Dean Kamen, founder of FIRST and president of DEKA Research & Development Corporation. “It’s the support of partners like NI that is helping FIRST make that goal a reality.”

FIRST engages and encourages students to discover the excitement of science and engineering through a range of robotics competitions including Junior FIRST LEGO League, FIRST LEGO League, FIRST Technical Challenge and FIRST Robotics Competition. With the partnership between NI, LEGO and FIRST, 150,000 students in all FIRST competitions will have access to a progressive programming platform starting with LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT-G and continuing through NI LabVIEW. This robotics software continuum introduces students to age-appropriate technology in an exciting, hands-on learning environment.

“We’ve chosen to partner with FIRST because we believe the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) program will have a substantial impact in creating more scientists and engineers” said Ray Almgren, vice president of Academic Relations at National Instruments. “By adding CompactRIO and LabVIEW to the robotics platform of their competition, FIRST will increase the technical capabilities of the teams’ robots while making the programming more accessible to a much larger and diverse group of students because of the ease of use and productivity in NI LabVIEW graphical programming.”

I’ve taken many cool videos of the new hardware already being used in several robots that NI put together to demonstrate the power of the new tools. I promise to post the videos as soon as they become available. :-)

The new CompactRIO is labeled the NI cRIO-FRC with the following specs:

· 400 MHz PPC
· 64 MB System Memory
· 128 MB Nonvolatile Storage
· 2M Gate FPGA
· 8 C Series I/O Ports
· RS-232 Serial Port
· Dual 10/100 Ethernet Ports
· VxWorks Operating System
· 19V-30V Input Voltage

You can plug in several modules to the cRIO base but the ones supplied are:

NI 9401: 8 Ch, 5 V/TTL High-Speed Bidirectional Digital I/O Module

· 8-channel, 100 ns ultrahigh-speed digital I/O
· 5 V/TTL, sinking/sourcing digital I/O
· -40 to 70 °C operating range
· Industry-standard 25-pin D-Sub connector
· Hot-swappable operation
· Bidirectional, configurable by nibble (4 bits)

NI 9201: 8-Ch, ±10 V, 500 kS/s, 12-Bit Analog Input Module, C Series

· 8 analog inputs, ±10 V input range
· 500 kS/s aggregate sampling rate
· 12-bit resolution, single-ended inputs, screw terminal or D-Sub connectors
· Hot-swappable operation; overvoltage protection; isolation
· NIST-traceable calibration
· -40 to 70 °C operating range

NI 9472: 8-Channel 24 V Logic, 100 µs, Sourcing Digital Output Module

· 8-channel, 100 µs digital output
· D-Sub or screw-terminal connector options
· 6 to 30 V range, sourcing digital output
· -40 to 70 °C operating range
· Hot-swappable operation
· Extreme industrial certifications/ratings

In addition to the cRIO, there are several other breakout boards and modules included. More details of the hardware with photos can be found here:
FRC Control System - Technical Specs

In order to program the robot, students will have a choice of C or LabVIEW. On the C side students will be able to use software developed by WPI. An excerpt from WPI’s press release:

Teams using C/C++ will base their code on a programming library developed by Brad Miller, associate director of WPI’s Robotics Resource Center, and a team of WPI faculty members and students. Called WPILib, the library includes a wide range of modules that will enable high school students to easily and quickly develop programs that take full advantage of the enhanced power of the new control system. Miller says WPILib will be released as an open-source software project, giving teams the ability to develop their own code and share it with the FIRST community.

On the LabVIEW side there will be a special palette of VIs that will assist students to help them quickly get up and running with the motion control and sensors of their robot. What exactly these VIs do has not been officially announced yet however NI has a hands-on demonstration here of LabVIEW and the new VIs. Students have been streaming here to try it out (and get a free t-shirt of course). I saw several students who have never even seen LabVIEW before literally grab the mouse lay down some code and start moving motors via a joystick in like 5 minutes! I have no doubt that LabVIEW will be a huge success with the new FRC teams.

Keep reading future posts as I bring more news and video from the FRC competition and also FTC and FLL.

Question for my readers who use LabVIEW professionally. Does this announcement motivate you to become a mentor in your local FRC team?

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