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Mind / Iron
by Bryan Bergeron, Editor
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A Push for FIRST
PUBLISHER
Larry Lemieux
publisher@servomagazine.com
An impossible deadline, a box of
stuff, a steep learning curve, and a
public competition — the stuff
engineers are made of — awaits high
school teams world-over in the annual
FIRST Robotics Competition. The
high-profile, adrenaline-charged FIRST
(For Inspiration and Recognition
of Science and Technology) is the
nonprofit organization designed to
inspire youth to become science and
technology leaders ( www.usfirst.
com). By all accounts, FIRST is working,
with over 37,000 high school students
involved last year.
The challenges facing the teams in
2009 will be significantly different from
those facing teams in previous years,
thanks to an infusion of capital,
technical mentoring, and advanced
hardware and software technology
from generous vendors and
institutions. At the center of the push
is National Instruments, joined by
Analog Devices, Boston Engineering,
ChipX, Dove Electronics, Freescale, MSI,
Texas Instruments, TTI, Westak, Wind
River, Worcester Polytechnic Institute,
and Xilinx.
FIRST teams opening the ‘box of
stuff’ for the 2009 competition will
find a new, high-end controller and
a matching, ruggedized aluminum
frame from National Instruments
( www.ni.com). The controller is a
National Instruments’ CompactRIO,
a ruggedized, reconfigurable
programmable automation
controller, shown in Figure 1. As Ray
Almgren, VP of Product Marketing
and Academic Relations, described
the controller to me, it’s about the
size of a box of Velveeta cheese.
At nearly four pounds, the controller
isn’t a replacement for that PIC or
BASIC Stamp in your carpet rover. It’s
intended to be used on a 100+ pound
competition robot that destined to
occasionally crash into other robots
in the event.
There’s a lot of power packed into
the modular, expandable controller,
including a 32-bit, 400 MHz Freescale
MPC5200, programmable FPGA-based
I/O, 802.11 wireless Ethernet, the
Wind River Vx Works real-time
operating system, and hot-swappable
I/O modules. Each I/O module is
connected directly to the FPGA,
providing low-level customization of
timing and I/O signal processing. In
addition, the FPGA is connected to the
embedded real-time processor via a
high-speed PCI bus. You can review
the full specifications at www.ni.com/
compactrio.
Programming a FPGA can be a
daunting task for seasoned engineers,
much less high school students with
only a few weeks to master the
technology. Fortunately, the FPGA and
MC5200 can be programmed in the NI
LabVIEW graphical programming
language, as well as ANSI C. If you’ve
worked with the LEGO Mindstorm NXT,
then you’re familiar with the icon-based
LabVIEW programming language. The
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER/
VP OF SALES/MARKETING
Robin Lemieux
display@servomagazine.com
EDITOR
Bryan Bergeron
techedit-servo@yahoo.com
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Jeff Eckert Tom Carroll
Gordon McComb David Geer
Dennis Clark R. Steven Rainwater
Fred Eady Kevin Berry
Brian Benson Simone Davalos
Alan Marconett David Calkins
James Baker Kurtis Wanner
William Smith
CIRCULATION DIRECTOR
Tracy Kerley
subscribe@servomagazine.com
MARKETING COORDINATOR
WEBSTORE
Brian Kirkpatrick
sales@servomagazine.com
WEB CONTENT
Michael Kaudze
website@servomagazine.com
PRODUCTION/GRAPHICS
Shannon Lemieux
Joe Keungmanivong
ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT
Debbie Stauffacher
FIGURE 1. Eight-bay
CompactRIO Controller.
Mind/Iron Continued
6 SERVO 06.2008
Copyright 2008 by
T & L Publications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
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