Month: March 2019

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2019 Week 2 CSA Notes

Posted on by Keith Rieck

Duluth Double DECCer

In Minnesota, the week 2 events were the Lake Superior Regional and the Northern Lights Regional, both held in the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center (the DECC).

Our observations include:

  • All roboRIOs had to be re-imaged to version FRC_roboRIO_2019_v14.  This update was released after stop-build day, so every bagged robot had to be updated.
    If you haven’t yet attended your first 2019 competition, you can prepare for this by updating your laptops with the FRC Update 2019.2.0.
    If you are helping teams at competition with this, it might be a little quicker to give them the FRC_roboRIO_2019_v14 file and reimage their RIO.
  • All Java and C++ projects had to be updated to GradleRIO version 2019.4.1.  GradleRIO version changes always require inital software downloads, so the first build after changing your version must be done while connected to the internet.  It’s far better to do this before the competition, while you have a good network connection.
    If you are helping teams at the competition, you can give them the latest WPILib update.  This update will install all the latest GradleRIO dependencies, minimizing download time.
  • We were expecting camera problems for LabView.  At Duluth, Brandon and Logon did extra duty for all the Labview teams.
  • Two teams who had programmed their robot in Eclipse with the 2018 version of WPILib.
    Fortunately, this was easy to fix.  We installed the latest WPILib to their laptops and then used the import wizard to convert their projects to GradleRIO.
  • As usual, plenty of teams suffered from loose electrical connections.
    Pull-test all your connections; nothing should come loose.  All the wires to your batteries, circuit breaker, and PDP should be completely immovable.
  • If using the Limelight camera, consider their bandwidth best practices.
  • If you are using a Limelight and / or frcvision on Raspberry PI, consider bringing an ethernet switch in order to assist troubleshooting.
  • Turn off the firewall on your laptops.
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Loop time override warnings

Posted on by Keith Rieck

An important message from Omar Zrien from CTR Electronics came out this weekend.  It addresses some warning messages that teams have been reporting:

  • Watchdog not fed within 0.020000s (see warning below).
  • Loop time of 0.02s overrun.

Anyone who uses CTRE’s components should read all of Omar’s posting, but relevant takeaways are:

  • Install the latest Phoenix firmware and add the corresponding Phoenix.json to your project.
  • Keep an eye on the number of get*, set*, and config* calls you make, since each call might consume a little processor time.
  • Don’t worry too much about the overrun warnings as long as your robot is performing.

 

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Labiew Dashboard Camera Fixes

Posted on by Keith Rieck

2019 Camera report

Lake Superior Regional and Northern Lights Regional (Duluth, Minnesota)

The following is a report from the Duluth CSA’s on cameras and the dashboard. As of Saturday Afternoon (Week 2) we have experienced 100% success rate of cameras performing between the 123 teams split between the 2 regionals. Our procedure to get this result will be outlined below.

If the team camera works, we let them go without any changes. This usually included the Limelight, Raspberry Pi, ShuffleBoard, and SmartDashboard. These presented very little problems with the FMS and NT.

For teams encountering issues, LabVIEW teams or teams using a LabVIEW dashboard, the following procedure was done in the pits. If the team was able to connect after any of these steps tethered to the robot we sent them out to the field.

In the Pits:

1. Download the 2019.2.1 LabVIEW Dashboard.

This would get passed on by a flash drive to the team’s driver station from a CSA. The folder would be placed on the desktop with the following path :

C:\Users\pcibam\Desktop\FRC_Dashboard\Dashboard.exe

2. If LabVIEW team, convert their code to a fresh 2019.2 Project as follows. All projects were named 2019 Duluth Cameras so we could determine which teams we applied this to. Always save when prompted to during this conversion.

a) Start a brand new project like normal

lv_cam_1_new

 

b) Delete the following from the begin VI. Once cleared it will look as follows. (Old Code)

lv_cam_2

Cleaned (Old Code)

lv_cam_3_cleaned

 

c) Copy everything except the following from begin. (Old Code) and paste in New Code

lv_cam_4_paste_in_new

 

d) Delete the following from Teleop. (New Code)

lv_cam_5_delete_from_teleop

Cleaned

lv_cam_6_cleaned

 

e) Copy everything except the following from Teleop (Old Code) and paste in New code

lv_cam_6a_cam_copy

 

 

f) Delete the following from Periodic Task (New Code)

lv_cam_7_delete_from_periodic

Cleaned

lv_cam_8_cleaned

 

g) Copy everything except the following from Periodic Task (Old Code) and paste in New code

lv_cam_8_copy_except

 

h) Delete the following from Autonomous Independent (New Code)

lv_cam_9_delete_from_auton

Cleaned

lv_cam_10_cleaned

 

i) Copy everything except the following from Autonomous Independent (Old Code) and paste in New code

lv_cam_11

We have not discovered what to do with robot global variables at this time. To be on the safe side teams should recreate these in the new project and link them to the appropriate locations manually.

 

On the field:

Check if NT Communication Light is on

lv_cam_12_dashboard

Once that light is green do the following:

  • If one camera, select the camera and wait. On average it would take about 7 seconds to connect.
  • If 2 cameras, select the second camera first. Let this camera boot up. Then select the first camera. It does not matter which side that cameras are on. Each camera on average would take 7 seconds.

If you have any question feel free to contact me at the information below. I hope this helps for future events! We will be doing the same procedure at the Great Northern Regional (North Dakota) and will report back with results from that regional.

 

Brandon A. Moe

University of Minnesota – Duluth, 2020 Minnesota CSA
FRC Team 7432 NOS Mentor

Personal: moexx399@d.umn.edu

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