Hello!! Unfortunately, our programmer has contracted COVID on the week of competition, around the same time we would like to be polishing our autonomous. Does anyone know any ways to communicate code and stuff with teammates that’s faster than e-mailing the files back and forth? Thank you very much for your help.
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If they have a vex forum account you can PM back and forth to share code. You can also use other sort of social messaging systems, whether that is their phone number or any other service. The most common one other than text messaging and vex forum messaging would probably be discord due to it being easy to use on PC and mobile.
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it’d be near impossible for your programmer to get anything done while away from the robot, other than making the framework for the code.
If possible, you could give them the robot and some elements/tiles (safely, of course), so they could do the programming at home in person. Just be sure to properly decontaminate the robot and elements when finished. Let them sit around for 3-4 days.
Or you could try to get your coder to explain what needs to be done to someone else on the team who can be with the robot, through a call or something. Would probably be a source of headache by both parties though.
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You can set up a git repository. This will allow you to collaborate and quickly send files back and forth while also maintaining version control.
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With Covid / pandemic - our club early on (March 12 onwards ) met using Big Blue Button (conferencing with lots of functionality and open source)… then Google Meet, Then Zoom…
Just do it! Just choose your video conferencing bridge… Not an issue today vs start of pandemic.
What you are looking for is shared screen and recording for members who can not be present at specific meeting time.
As others have and will mention - use shared drive or shared repository for important stuff - code etc.
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Thank you very much! I’ll ask him to set up a forum account (among other things). We already use discord, but it’s mostly to set up meeting plans.
I’ll look into this! I’ve never heard of it before, I guess it speaks as to why I don’t program…
Change approach and up the stakes - our meetings included both MS and HS teams to keep things going … More importantly, we had Superintendent participate in calls (much like we brought in Super at competitions and drive robot…) This does a lot to connect other admins and staff that the work being done by students in robot development is serious business … covid or not - involve all stake holders to the importance of your work.
I mean, if they are feeling well, you could always video call them while you are fine tuning the auton program. This way they can tell you what to add and what to change.
But yeah, if they are not feeling well, it may be safe to just hold out on programming. Giving them the robot would be a viable option, but then you would need to disinfect it for the competition (which could be a minor headache depending on when it is disinfected).
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Seconding @xTigr here, get your teammates and your code onto github and make changes that way. You don’t have to worry about emailing files because changes just show up on your local drive.
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This is a good idea! We can’t lend him the robot because it would lead to a host of issues, but I think I’ll video call him. He’s told me that he’s asymptomatic, so I think he’d be up for coding.
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Did some research regarding Github, and I’ll try to get a repository set up.
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@2775Josh @Xenon27 @xTigr @lacsap @RoboCatz @Milo Thank you all so much for your help!!! I didn’t expect to get this many responses so fast!
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Something like Drovio, TeamViewer, or Parsec could be used to remotely control a computer that’s connected to the robot/controller. A video call to see the robot’s actions.
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Just a general suggestion. Because of all the sickness going around, I would suggest all teams have at least a single backup programmer, and a person who understands the code so it is possible to function without the main programmer.
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For a very low-effort solution, you could just share a google doc (live editing) while on facetime/any video platform. Then you could just copy-paste the changes in (assuming you aren’t using blocks).
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discord, putting code on gdocs and copying it into vexcode
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This goes for all team positions imo.
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Discord works well, we have made a server for our team.