ScottH
Member Since: May 9, 2008
Country: United States
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Great news on implementing weight/prices classes!
0x27 demonstrated what can be accomplished with a very high-end, expensive GPS and a big, spendy chassis, but now the average individual's bot can still be competitive on a reasonable budget. The unlimited bots will put on a great show and the $350 limit will drive some cool innovations.
See you next year!
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Ditto. I'm looking for these too.
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So are hovering aircraft allowed? I.e. if the vehicle doesn't have a tail rotor (not a helicopter) and only has one or two props (not a quadcopter), is that OK? Would something like the Convair pogo (http://youtu.be/Nh9dhBJY010) be allowed?
Or is the intent to ban eye-level, hovering vehicles so that most of the race is conducted at a "safe" altitude?
Finally, does a hovercraft count as an air or a ground vehicle?
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I signed up for the project showcase, but I haven't heard anything about it recently. 22 Oct is approaching rapidly. Any details?
-Scott -
fmb60 is correct. The LabVIEW+Arduino setup requires that the PC and Arduino stay connected. I'd take a look at the lego robotics system. It uses a graphical language that's inspired by LabVIEW and there is a lot of support for that system.
You can also build robots with an arduino without LabVIEW, but you'll be programming in C and building all the hardware from scratch. -
Is this bundle going to be upgraded to LabVIEW 2011?
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Snobbotics is completely missing the point here. You don't program the Arduino with LabVIEW, you load some code onto the Arduino that lets you conveniently use the Arduino as a low-cost DAQ (data acquisition) system. It's a great deal: fifty bucks for LabVIEW and DAQ hardware.
LabVIEW is great for a lot of DAQ work where the task maps well to the data-flow LabVIEW paradigm (e.g. setup hardware->collect data->analyze->graph->save to file.). I've been using LabVIEW since 1993 and it's a great tool for a many tasks. That being said, I'm not a big fan of graphical programming in general. If you're doing general purpose computing, pick another tool. The combination of instrument drivers, a big library of math and analysis functions, fast GUI construction, and ease of use is what makes LabVIEW a winner for lab automation and data collection. There are so many high-level functions that are ready to go in LabVIEW, you can get real work done with a tiny program. That's the point: work done vs time spent. Nobody in industry and academia spends thousands on LabVIEW because it hinders their work.
Remember you can interface LabVIEW to C and Matlab. I often write code in C or Matlab and use LabVIEW for the GUI.
His comments about having to relearn how to program when changing robot platforms is nonsensical. It's my understanding that the LEGO robotics stuff uses a watered-down graphical environment based upon LabVIEW. Besides all that robot stuff is an insignificant portion of National Instruments business. That robot stuff is way cool, but it's just a toy example of what folks do with LabVIEW.
I don't know what Snobotoics means by "hardcore integration," but if you want to easily talk to hardware and instruments and collect and analyze data, LabVIEW is a nice tool. If you want to write it all from scratch (hardware drivers, mathematical analysis code, GUIs, and file I/O) there's nothing stopping you. -
Here's some of the video I took at the event. Check the mass start!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6-ng7DFRRA -
Thanks again to Sparkfun for hosting such a great event and to all the competitors for making it so much fun! Tobor will be back with a bigger motor next year!
I made a quick video using the raw footage we got at the AVC. The Mass start is worth watching in slo-mo!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6-ng7DFRRA -
I'll take a look at this as well. I haven't noticed this issue, but I haven't looked for it either.
One thing I do notice is that the SFE schematic shows a 1000 pF input coupling cap, but the MSI datasheet shows a 0.1 uF cap there. Perhaps this is affecting the low end response? I don't have the board in front of me so I can't check and see how it's actually built.
No public wish lists :(