Programming Links
General
- FIRST Robotics Resource Center – A set of resources created by the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) for use with FIRST competitions
- LabVIEW – A graphical programming environment used to develop measurement, test, and control systems using features that resemble a flowchart.
FRC Java
- Java Runtime Environment – Also known as JRE, the environment used for Java so that you can run Java applications on your computer
- Java Development Kit – Also known as JDK, the base development kit for all Java applications. This includes all the standard classes required for Java development. FRC.
- NetBeans – The programming integrated development environment (IDE) for Java that we use to program for the robot
- WPI Java Updates– Updates for programming with Java in the FRC season
- Getting Started With Java for FRC – An introduction for using Java for the FRC competition
- Getting Started with Microsoft Kinect for FRC – An introduction for using the Kinect for the FRC competition
- WPI Robotics Library User’s Guide – A guide to the WPI Robotics library (WPILib), with both C++ and Java code
Software Downloads
- Autodesk Inventor, FIRST Student Edition – Autodesk’s Inventor, 3D CAD modeling software, provided to FIRST students for free
- DraftSight – Free 2D CAD software that allows users to modify DWG files easier
Programming History
Once, programming the robot was simple as long as no extra sensors were needed. But if you wanted to use an encoder (to find how fast the gears were moving) or set up a different drive method than the one given by default, each team needed to write essentially the same code for the task. So to save work, WPILib was developed. This is a library developed by Worchester Polytechnic Institute that contains the common tasks teams need to do, such as use different drive control systems and control sensors.
WPILib comes in two flavors: Java and C++. We are currently employing Java, an object-oriented programming language, for our robot’s programming. It is the default language for the AP Computer Science course, offered at many high schools throughout the US.
In 2012, we grew from a team of 2 to a team of 20 due to an influx of aspiring programmers. We taught them using the Mechanical Simulation Library (MechSim). One of our programming officers developed the library to provide a robust Java environment in which new members could learn principles and algorithms without a physical robot. We also used the documentation and references provided by FIRST to transition to WPILib (below).
- Getting Started With Java for FRC – Installing NetBeans, the WPILib, etc. Do this first.
- WPI Robotics Library User Guide – What it sounds like
- WPILib Robotic Programming Cookbook – Code snippets for frequently occurring problems. Before you write any new code, look here first to see if someone already did your work for you.
The 2012 FRC competition, Rebound Rumble, features vision targets so that scoring can be computer-guided. Performing this seemingly simple task requires computer vision techniques. Vision processing can be complex, but the demands of FRC competitions are less exacting than those of researchers and AI competitions. The resources below assume some basic familiarity with image processing already, so you may want to view: an intro; an example of vision processing; and/or a computer vision contest (all on YouTube).
- Vision Whitepaper – How to track the vision targets for the backboards.
- Determining Robot Position Relative to Vision Target by Analyzing Camera Image – Programmers are good at naming things, aren’t they? *ahem* It does exactly what it says.
- Perspective Rectangle Detection – Another academic whitepaper that helps identify rectangles from various perspectives (complex angles + translation + zoom).
- Parallelogram Detection Using the Tiled Hough Transform – Hough Transform is a shape detection algorithm. Basically, partition the image into rectangular regions and use Hough Transform on each section (aka tile), then composite them to extract parallelograms from the original image.
- Hough Transform – A tad gentler approach than the Wikipedia article. Both are good starting points, though. Check out Generalized Hough Transform for a brief overview of how to apply Hough Transform for arbitrary objects (e.g., not lines or circles).