Kickoff

This page documents some of the things that we have to do following kickoff. Some of these may only apply to rookie teams.

Set up the Wireless Bridge

The wireless bridge from the Kit of Parts needs to be setup and configured. Question: How to do this with multiple robots in the lab? I think we pick different wireless network names (SSIDs) for the different robots.

Set up the Classmate

As a rookie team, we'll get a new Classmate in our Kit of Parts.

Image the Classmate

See the instructions for using the rookie USB stick or for veterans and rookie teams that need to create an imaging USB stick.

Configure the wireless network

Set up the networking on the Classmate to be compatible with the robot, using these instructions.

Configure Driver Station

Then the already-installed Driver Station software should be configured.

Verify communication

Verify that the Classmate can communicate with the robot's cRIO and with the joysticks or controllers by starting the Driver Station and more. Look out for the common warnings and errors.

Set up the Smart Dashboard

Set up the Java Smart Dashboard and configure it for our robot. (The configuration of the dashboard may change over time.) Be sure to configure it to launch via the Driver Station's "Java" button.

Get the Java codebase

This is optional. It is possible for other computers to build and deploy the code to the robot. However, at events it might be nice to have a full dev environment (including Eclipse) on the Classmate.

Install both Java, Eclipse, Git and Ant so that we can get the latest code from GitHub and deploy it to the robot using Steps 0 and 1. Once installed, set up the local git repository using the Git Bash shell:

$ cd ~
$ git clone https://github.com/frc-4931/2014.git frc-2014
$ cd frc-2014

Deploy the latest Java code

Then, when you want to download the latest committed code from GitHub, simply perform the following steps (again, in Git Bash):

$ cd ~/frc-2014          # if not already there
$ git checkout master
$ git pull origin master

Then build, deploy the code to the robot, and run the code:

$ ant deploy run

As soon as you see the "[frcrun] [cRIO] Entering disabled mode!" line, enable the robot using the Driver Station.

Other Development Machines

Install the latest NI LabVIEW updates, as described here. Be sure to uninstall any existing versions first, since the license will be expiring soon. See this overview of the 2014 applications.

Image the cRIO

Image the cRIO from the Kit of Parts using these instructions.

Configure the camera

The camera from the Kit of Parts needs to be connected and configured.

Prepare for a competition

There are a number of things to do to prepare for a competition, including running the robot in practice mode (which basically is disabled->autonomous->disabled-teleop->disabled).