So you want to be a programmer!!!!

Presented By:

Frank Larkin

Lansdale Catholic Robotics, Team 272

Philadelphia PA, Dec. 2013

Big Al says…

Big Al says…

• Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

• Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

• Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

• It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.

• Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

Think like a programmer!!• “Robots” can sense the world around it.

– Some sensors tell it what the CBU’s want.• Joysticks – tell it power levels in a direction.• Button switches – tell if the button is pressed or

not. – Some sensors give the Robot a number that

represents how far something is from something else.

– Some sensors give a number that represents how much the robot has veered from a straight line.

– Your program will make use of those sensors.

• What to we tell it to do?– “We” tell it nothing!!!!! – “We” vary the power to motors to apply force– “We” activate relays to turn on or off motors, lights

and other shiny objects.– “We” activate and deactivate actuators

(pneumatics – air systems) to apply force.

• We program the robot a somewhat human readable language.– For FRC, JAVA, C++, Labview– Eventually you will learn to think in that language.

Development Cycle

Joy

Pain

Time – Lots Of It!

A brief moment of optimism usually

followed by a crushing downfall!

Warning: DO NOT BE FOOLED!

Final ThoughtUnlike baseball crying is allowed in

software development… but …

…when you’re done, get back and make it work!