Today, we un-boxed all the new technology for the new Android-based platform made by Modern Robotics. In the box were two DC motor controllers, one servo motor controller, one power hub, one legacy module, one device interface, and a light sensor, a touch sensor and an optical distance sensor. There was also a wire to connect the two controllers to the Driver Station phone and another cable to connect the robot to the Robot Controller phone.
First, we connected the Driver Station phone to the Robot Controller phone through WiFi with the pairing program on the Robot Controller phone. Then, we connected the Robot Controller phone to the robot via the legacy module, which connected all the motors and motor controllers to one piece instead of daisy chaining them all together. There were 6 ports on the legacy module, and we didn’t know in which ports the motor controller wires would have to go to in order for the wheels to move. We then followed some auto configuration instructions on the Robot Controller app itself. After that, the app gave us a list of programs to choose from, and we chose one that should drive the robot. We were able to get our servo moving with the pre-programmed controls on the controller, but not the wheels. We seemed to try every button and joystick combination. There had to be some way…
Then our coach looked at the code of the program and figured out that the left joystick should operate the wheels and everything looked like it was connected correctly, so there had to be something wrong with the ports on the legacy module. We then re-configured the ports for the wheels and the arm on the phone and everything worked! At the end of the meeting, we got the robot to drive and flip our ball-collector arm up and down!
The new Android system is cool and much easier to set up than the old FCS and Samantha module. If we hadn’t had trouble with the legacy module, we probably could have replaced the old system in under a half an hour.