New cRIO

One big change this year is the cRIO. National Instruments has released the cRIO (compact Reconfigurable Input/Output) FRCII. This new "onboard computer" is smaller with only 4 expansion slots (as opposed to the previous iteration's 8) for plugging in NI (National Instruments) I/O modules. The RAM has been doubled, as well as program storage. On the new cRIO FRCII expansion slots are also assigned: slot 1 is analog I/O, slot 2 is digital I/O, and slot three is solenoid control (slot 4 is multi-purpose). My understanding is that programming will not undergo any radical changes, if any. However the 2012 cRIO imaging tool, used to configure the cRIO for competition et cetera, is almost a completely different program. The tool includes a GUI with an image of whatever cRIO the program is currently interfaced with showing installed modules, as well as a virtual version of the DIP switches that were physically on board the old iteration for use in operations such as IP reset.

The updated FRC cRIO can be seen above with and without I/O modules installed. Other discrepancies between these and the previous version are the reduction from 2 to 1 Ethernet port, and the reduction of minimum voltage from 19v to 9v (allowing it to now be driven off of a standard FRC bot circuit without converting it up to 24v).

With the team not meeting during the holiday break, I am simply waiting for Kickoff (January 7th, the beginning of the season). While I will periodically post information such as this post, gleaned from research regarding the season to come, chances are I will not have sufficient material for a post every day.