Hi All, great to meet up earlier today.
There was some interest at today's UG meeting in the FIRST programmes that I mentioned in my intro. As requested I have provided an overview below.
The connection with the UG is that these programmes are supported by National Instruments - in the case of the FRC programme NI provides LabVIEW and a cRIO (from this year NI are supplying roboRIO instead of the cRIO) as part of the "Kit of Part"s for each team.
My involvement with NI and LabVIEW has been entirely through the FIRST programmes so I am probably an outrigger as far as the UG is concerned. That said, I hope that we can share some of the experiences of our team with the UG, perhaps a demo at a future quarterly meeting, code reviews or a community project - let me know if there is interest here. In the meantime I look forward to establishing a network with you guys ... who knows, if the programme actually works then some of our team might end up working with NI products down the track!
Cheers.
Ian.
FIRST, the 5000ft view:
- For inspiration and recognition of science and technology (FIRST) is a US not-for-profit organisation promoting STEM through robotics programmes;
- There are four programmes:
- Junior First Lego League or "jr.FLL" (ages 6 to 9)
- FIRST LEGO League or "FLL" (ages 9 to 16)
- FIRST Tech Challenge or "FTC" (ages 14 to 18)
- FIRST Robotics Challenge or "FRC" (ages 14 to 18)
- FIRST was started a couple of decades ago by Dean Kamen (Seway inventor) but it is relatively new to Australia
- Most Aussie teams are based in NSW but there are some teams in Victoria ...
- 20+ FLL teams
- 3 FRC teams
- 1 FTC team
- FLL is LEGO based using NXT or EV3 controller on a table top "field" with "missions" that the robot has to complete autonomously, one robot on the field at a time, 2.5 minute rounds, user interaction is permitted in the base corner only, MINDSTORMS (NI) programming language, challenge released in September, tournamants start in November
- FTC played on a 12' x 12' field mat, again 2.5 minute rounds but with an autonomous period and the remainder is the "teleop period" with robot under user wireless control, 4 robots on the field at a time in 2 alliances of 2 teams each, robot restricted to 18" x 18" x 18" cube, parts can be custom except for controller (NXT), many teams use Matrix or Tetrix parts, programmed with LabVIEW or Robot C, challenge released in September, tournamants start in November
- FRC played on 54' x 27' field, 2.5 minute rounds, 15 second autonomous period and 2.25 minute teleop period with robiot under user wireless control, roboRIO controller, programmed with LabVIEW or C++ or Java, auto motors, pnuematic systems permitted, robot size restrictions vary each season but this year the base size was 28" x 42" x 78", challenge released early January and robot has to be bagged ready for shipping by mid February, yes, thats only 6.5 weeks!
- Here are a handful of links that might be of interest that show the challenges for the 2014/15 season ...
- Our team 'i c robotics' FLL robot run
- FTC Challenge
- FRC Challenge
- Our team 'i c robotics' home page (including icons/links to social media and LabVIEW code on JazzHub)
- Events remaining this season:
- FRC "Duel Down Under", Sydney, June 25-27
- FLL "ASIA Pacific Open", Sydney July 10-15
- Next local event:
- FLL Victoria tournament - November 2015
Hopefully we can set up a demo at a future UG meeting. If you have any questions or want to know more in the meantime, feel free to email me direct: ian.jessett @ versiontree.com.
