Recent Updates

  • Updated on: Jan 20, 2023

    Viewing the RoboRealm output in SmartDashboard

    RoboRealm is a vision processing application that runs on a Windows PC connected to the robot via a network connection. It can read the camera stream, process images and send results back to the robot. It is often desirable to see the results of the image processing on your driver station laptop, but screen real estate is at a premium. You can display images from RoboRealm on the SmartDashboard by using it's internal web server as shown in this article.

    Manual SmartDashboard

  • Updated on: Jan 20, 2023

    Preparing your Control System for Competition

    This article outlines a number of Control System related items a team can do to prepare for running their robot connected to the field at an event. These tips and tricks should help ensure a smooth experience when bringing your robot to the field and connecting the Field Management System.

    Manual Getting Started With the 2014 Control System

  • Updated on: Jan 20, 2023

    Running commands during the autonomous period

    Once commands are defined they can run in either the teleop or autonomous part of the program. In fact, the power of the command based programming approach is that you can reuse the same commands in either place. If the robot has a command that can shoot Frisbees during autonomous with camera aiming and accurate shooting, there is no reason not to use it to help the drivers during the teleop period of the game.

    Manual Command based programming

  • Updated on: Jan 20, 2023

    Running commands on Joystick input

    You can cause commands to run when joystick buttons are pressed, released, or continuously while the button is held down. This is extremely easy to do only requiring a few lines of code.

    Manual Command based programming

  • Updated on: Jan 20, 2023

    Driver Station Log File Viewer

    In an effort to provide information to aid in debugging, the FRC Driver Station creates log files of important diagnostic data while running. These logs can be reviewed later using the FRC Driver Station Log Viewer. The Log Viewer can be found via the shortcut installed in the Start menu or in the FRC Driver Station folder in Program Files.

    Manual Getting Started With the 2014 Control System

  • Updated on: Jan 20, 2023

    Displaying the status of Commands and Subsystems

    If you are using the command-based programming features of WPILib, you will find that they are very well integrated with SmartDashboard. It can help diagnose what the robot is doing at any time and it gives you control and a view of what's currently running.

    Manual SmartDashboard

  • Updated on: Jan 20, 2023

    FRC Driver Station Errors/Warnings

    In an effort to provide both Teams and Volunteers (FTAs/CSAs/etc.) more information to use when diagnosing robot problems, a number of Warning and Error messages have been added to the Driver Station. These messages are displayed in the DS diagnostics tab when they occur and are also included in the DS Log Files that can be viewed with the Log File Viewer. This document discusses the messages produced by the DS (messages produced by WPILib can also appear in this box and the DS Logs).

    Manual Getting Started With the 2014 Control System

  • Updated on: Jan 20, 2023

    Axis M1013 Camera Compatibility

    It has come to our attention that the Axis M1011 camera has been discontinued and superseded by the Axis M1013 camera. This document details any differences or issues we are aware of between the two cameras when used with WPILib and the provided sample vision programs.

    Manual Vision Processing

  • Updated on: Jan 20, 2023

    Measuring Bandwidth Usage

    On the 2013 FRC Field (and at home when the DAP-1522 is configured using the FRC Bridge Configuration Utility) each team is limited to 7Mb/s of network traffic (see the FMS Whitepaper for more details). The FMS Whitepaper provides information on determining the bandwidth usage of the Axis camera, but some teams may wish to measure their overall bandwidth consumption. This document details how to make that measurement.

    Manual Getting Started With the 2014 Control System

  • Updated on: Jan 20, 2023

    Getting your robot to drive with the RobotDrive class

    WPILib provides a RobotDrive object that handles most cases of driving the robot either in autonomous or teleop modes. It is created with either two or four speed controller objects. There are methods to drive with either Tank, Arcade, or Mecanum modes either programmatically or directly from Joysticks.

    Note: the examples illustrated in this section are generally correct but have not all been tested on actual robots. But should serve as a starting point for your projects.

    Manual WPILib programming