Does anyone know where the specs for the new microcontrollers can be found? I am particularly interested in how many lines of code it can hold… (especially since my team filled the brain up with all our codes…)
How about specs on the new joystick? Any ideas on how hard it will be to program the accelerometer in it?
Also, what happened to the affordable prices VEX has been going for? It seems a bit pricey considering we just upgraded to bluetooth…
Also, did they release any new parts other than the motors and control systems? I personally would like to see better encoders, in particular, smaller, more manageable quadratures, less buggy ultrasonics, and if possible, a two-axis tracking system… Similar to those used in old mice… A ball with a x- and y-axis sensor, so you can get readings on a flat plane of motion…
https://vexforum.com/wiki/index.php/VEX_Cortex_Microcontroller
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VEX does not, and has never supported Bluetooth. If you don’t like the prices, don’t upgrade. Your existing controllers and transmitters will keep working.
](http://www.vexrobotics.com/products/accessories/control/276-2192.html)
So sorry… I said bluetooth… I meant Wi-Fi… I am still working on the change from FTC to VEX… 
So we are allowed to use last years system? Will the old controllers work with the new brain? How about the new controllers with the old brain?
Old microcontrolers with VEXnet upgrades will still be allowed.
The VEXnet joystick will not work with the old microcontroller, I’m not sure about the other way round.
The Cortex (new controller) is not supported with the old transmitter + VEXnet upgrade. It was initially planned to be supported, but the communication reliability could not meet our standards for acceptability.
In short, the Cortex will work with the new joystick using VEXnet and will work with the current transmitter using 75MHz.
With regards to sensors, the Cortex / VEXnet development demanded the majority of our development resources for the last 12 months. We are committed to expanding / improving our sensor products in 2010. I am making no promises, but you should expect to see some new sensors before the end of the year.
To add to that, the CORTEX is a fantastic upgrade, well worth the price. I was fortunate enough to win one at the FIRST Championship a few weeks back and it can take any code you throw at it without a hitch. If you have no need for it, you can keep your old transmitter, but if you do stuff complex enough to make the old controller lag, you will love the CORTEX.
I’ve never hit the code limit on the CORTEX. You probably won’t either.
$250 is a good price point for the CORTEX. I could see the Joystick being too much ($100 sounds more reasonable and the face buttons could have a bit less “stick”, but it’s otherwise excellent), but not the CORTEX.
(edit: The above is before I realized the thing has an accelerometer in it. …$150 sounds GREAT.)
Two omni wheel sensor pods positioned perpendicular to each other will do it. Kinda big but worth it for good autonomous tracking without line usage.
WOW
i have NEVER maxed out the old microcontroller
what do you guys program with it?
the only thing i can think of is a pid loop
but i dont even know how to do it (ill just download one :P)
ya the accelerometer is a great “add-on”
you can drive your robot without using ANY buttons! =D
I once maxed out the v.5 microcontroller. Had 10 autonomous programs to select from and had not made any functions to cut the size… But by the time worlds came along, we managed to decrease it by about 40% after a lot of optimisation.
2 out of 3 of our robots maxed out the V0.5 Microcontrollers, this was due to many functions for every single type of movement on the robot, and also auto-straightening code in each of the movement functions, (checks the quad-encoders and adjusts the speed of the motors to ensure that the robot follows a straight and accurate, and consistent path). All of our robots also had large and many autonomous modes, and many sensors, and also driver assist code in driver control, (a 2 jointed arm could be auto-leveled by pressing a button, and pressing it again would turn it off, our other 2 robots had auto-stopping in driver and autonomous via a touch sensor or potentiometer). Just a few examples, after we reached the limit, we were forced to delete “unneeded” code (code we could live without).
P.S. Never in any of our robots code did we have a PID loop.
Three… Wheeled… Holonomic.
Bust out the trig and calculus books!
-Cody
Omg can you seriously do trig on the cortex?!?!? :eek: YES!!!
PID loops (not really my thing, but they work), multiple autonomous modes, many functions and subroutines, etc. While it’s fun working under such constraints, I’m glad the CORTEX has all but eliminated them.
Wow!! Someone else actually took the holomonic design beyond just mounting the wheels and powering them differently!! I thought I was the only one!! (One of my brother’s wrote his thesis on omni-directional control, with mecanum (or omni) wheels, so I had a little bit of help… :P)
But yes, we have hit the limit a lot actually… We had three autonomous’s I believe, and actually, the controls weren’t that complicated… Four of our motors did the same thing… It was all the choices, the more advanced coding of the drive system, the pneumatics we added, and all the fail-safes in case the drivers forgot to change the code…
Seriously, if you watched us at all in Dallas, I think it was left in programming challenge code twice, but our programmer put a driver-control period into that code as well, just in case… Guess it paid off…
I think Richard used up all the space in 2921.
I almost used up all the space on 2921c, with only the programming challenge code on it. With a lot of time I could have made the program a lot smaller though.