Does Robotics Academy have have a new version of RobotC available for the new FTC season? The current download expires ed of August. Also, does RobotC support the new Samantha WiFi interface?

Gary Lindner
Coyote Robotics
FTC Teams 965 and 3749

Gary,

I was planning on asking the same quesiton, you beat me to it.

As for competition use with Samantha, the current version should work fine (based on what I have heard and the fact they had a couple units at Atlanta last year to test with your current robot). It wouild be nice to be able to download and debug over the WiFi though.

We had fun teaming with you in VA and hope to have a chance to see you again this year.

Good luck.

David

There will be a new version of ROBOTC that works with the Samantha interface. It has been in final test for a few weeks and will be released in September.

For 2010-11 the Samantha interface only supports the messaging used during competition -- i.e. the Field Management System (FMS). Programs are still downloaded over USB/Bluetooth and the ROBOTC debugger only works via USB/Bluetooth. You willbe able to do competition testing via either Bluetooth (using the existing test functionality in ROBOTC) or via Samantha (using the new Samantha FMS).

Dick, Thanks for the reply. However, you seem to contradict yourself. In the first sentence you say that the new version of RobotC will support Samantha. I the second, you indicate it cannot be used. Could you please clarify this? Thanks, Gary

Dick,

Do you know when in September it will be released? We are regularly using the compiler to test new ideas and to program "playbots" for demonstrations. If the new software is not available by 1-September, then we will have a dead time where we cannot do any new programming until the new compiler is released. We are fine for our demo this weekend and anything this month, but we are worried about four events (so far) scheduled for September.

Thanks,

David

For 2010-11 season, Samantha is only supported in the Competition control Field Management System.

There is work underway to make Samantha fully supported in the software IDEs (i.e. ROBOTC and LabVIEW) via an enhancement to the Fantom.DLL that handles all the communications between the PC and the NXT. Samantha will be a third choice on top of the existing USB or Bluetooth. Unfortunately, this is not available for the 2010-11 season.

Dick, Thanks for clearing this up. Any respone to David's question about RobotC functionality after Augut 31? Gary

It's my understanding that the 2010-11 registration includes a fresh copy of ROBOTC. I'm not that involved with the business side so I don't know exactly how it will be distributed.

I have received our 2010-2011 competition kit and it only includes an empty CD case with a link to the existing RoboC that expires August 31. Please communicate up through your channels that this version needs to be updated by August 31.

Thanks again for your help.

I already did a few days back. I'm sure there will be a new download version available before August 31.

Thanks for the update.

We have made changes to ROBOTC to support new elements specific to this year's game. I'm currently investigating with FIRST and FTC to verify if we can release the new build before the game is announced on Sept 11th.

If we are allowed to release early, the build will be available by the end of this week (Friday) - If not, the build will be delayed until Sept 11th. If the build has to held until Sept 11th, I'll release an update to the current build to extend the "summer" version until Sept. 15th.

Timothy, Thanks for the update and thanks for taking care of us. Gary

So is the Samantha-compliant FMS available for download yet?

You'll have to contact FIRST about that. We're only responsible for the ROBOTC software.