The PID (Proportional, Integral, Differential) is an algorithm for determining the motor speed based on sensor feedback to reach a setpoint as quickly as possible. For example, a robot with an elevator that moves to a predetermined position should move there as fast as possible then stop without excessive overshoot leading to oscillation. Getting the PID controller to behave this way is called "tuning". The idea is to compute an error value that is the difference between the current value of the mechanismfeedback element and the desired (setpoint) value. In the case of the arm, there might be a potentiometer connected to an analog channel that provides a voltage that is proportional to the position of the arm. The desired value is the voltage that is predetermined for the position the arm should move to, and the current value is the voltage for the actual position of the arm.

You can change the type of widget that displays values with the SmartDashboard. The allowable widgets depend on the type of the value being displayed.

Often debugging or monitoring the status of a robot envolves writing a number of values to the console and watching them stream by. With SmartDashboard you can put values to a GUI that is automatically constructed based on your program. As values are updated, the corresponding GUI element changes value - there is no need to try to catch numbers streaming by on the screen.

RobotBuilder is a Java program and as such should be able to run on any platform that is supported by Java. We have been running RobotBuilder on Mac OS X, Windows 7, and various versions of Linux successfully.