FTC Transition + Documentation Suggestions

[zachwaffle4]

Any suggestions to make the FTC transition easier can go here for future reference :)

[miriamsr]

FTC teams should be aware that in WPILib VSCode, the "Build" and "Deploy" buttons do different things. The "Build" button compiles your code by does NOT send anything to your SystemCore. The "Deploy" button will build if you haven't done so already and then send the compiled code to your robot. It is important for teams to be aware of the difference since this is a change from the only button in Android Studio being the "Run" button which builds and deploys your code regardless of what you had previously done.

[ThadHouse]

build if (and only if) you haven't done so already

Not quite fully correct. Deploy will do a build and then deploy. Doesn’t matter if you have already done a build. It looks like that because the builds themselves are incremental but that’s just a gradle thing.

[miriamsr]

Thanks for the correction!

[gearsincorg]

FTC teams are used to just choosing a motor and the SDK knows how to setup closed loop controls because it knows rotation direction, counts per rev, max RPM etc.
During the transition, there should be some pre-defined PID-FF values available for teams to use with existing legacy motors.

This could anything from:
A) a posted list of "good" PIDF values for most motors,
to
Z) a system call ( eg: loadParams(GOBILDA_5202) ) that loads the PIDF constants into a legacy motor object based on a chosen legacy motor ennumerator.

[zachwaffle4]

I think this would be useful, though I'm unsure what good defaults for the PID constants would be.

An API could maybe look like

ExpansionHubMotor motor = ExpansionHubMotor.fromDefaults(ExpansionHubMotors.GOBILDA_5202);

[gearsincorg]

That API is nice.

If nothing else, "good" defaults would be values that enable the raw unloaded motors to reach the full range of speeds from 0 to max, and do so without noticable instability, or large latency.

I've been able to go through and determine reasonable Closed loop Velocity values for the the motors we have on hand (GOBILDA_5202).
But in general, the values will be different for other motors, mainly due to the different CPR and Max RPM values that effect the kV.

It would need to be a task assigned to somone with access to most motors.

[gearsincorg]

FTC teams may not discover that runtime errors are displayed in the LOG screen on the Driver station.
Since this is not the default use for the screen, a quick note pointing this out would be usefull.

The first time you deploy a program and it causes the "no code" error, it can be a bit jaring not knowing where to look :)