He Blogs Again By Night...: Derek White, bits,bytes&JVMs

Over the last few months we've been working with WPI and 20 high school robotics teams getting the Java SDK for the FIRST Robotics Competition ready for the 2010 season. We've been getting great feedback from the teams including bugs and questions. We've also seen confirmation of the value that Java brings to some teams. One mentor said that they can usually only find a couple of student C++ programmers for the team, but for 2010 they have 10 Java programmers! Or was it 15?

This week FIRST announced a public release of the Java SDK. Here's the official word from Bill's Blog (the official FRC blog):

In addition, I’m very pleased to let you know that an early version of the FRC Java software is now available for download at http://first.wpi.edu/FRC/frcjava.html . I know we promised this for November, and I apologize for being a few days late, but I think you will be very happy with the results. Our hats off to the extraordinarily dedicated Java beta test teams and the developers for all their hard work! Veteran teams, I encourage you to open your doors to rookies in your area interested in getting an early look at Java and how it works with the robot. Remember they don’t have the advantage of having last year’s control system to experiment with.

This early-release SDK is only fully usable by FRC teams that have the cRIO hardware (veteran teams). Check the FIRST forums to read or request more information.

This Java SDK is based on the Squawk JVM and the Sun SPOT SDK. Rookie teams can get experience with the Netbeans IDE and Java ME APIs by using the Sun SPOT Emulator. See http://sunspotworld.com/frc for more information.

BTW, if you're an experienced Java programmer, don't sit around pouting about how you never get to program dangerous, high-speed, 120 pound robots. Consider being a programming mentor to a local FRC team! See our mentoring tips wiki as well as usfirst.org.

I've finally caught my breath after JavaOne - we had a busy week. We were able to bring FIRST to a lot of technical people that had never heard of FIRST, and let people know that Java was coming.

JavaOne Pavilion... Technical Session and BOF...

James Gosling's Toy Show Keynote Brad Miller and James Gosling talked about FIRST and Java in front of a live audience of thousands and webcast to many more. I helped with a demo along with Scott and Austin.

Duke's Choice Award... Thanks... More Information...  (Full Blog Entry)

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) won the 2009 Duke's Choice Award in the Category: Java Technology in Education for it's work bringing Java to the FIRST Robotics Competition.

This was worked started by WPI students Brian O'Keefe, Marouane Afiri, and Albedith Diaz for their "Major Qualifying Project". They ported the open source Squawk JVM to the compactRIO robot control system, and ported WPILib, the C++ robotics library used in the FIRST Robotics competition, to Java. They did a great job in in a very short time - they did the first port of Squawk to VxWorks (it was actually only the second port of Squawk to run "natively" on an OS), and were part of the initial proposal to the FIRST organization. I was very happy to be the team's "industry" advisor - this became my introduction into the world of FIRST robotics! This work has been continued by the WPI Robotics Resource Center, assisted by the Squawk and Sun SPOT teams at Sun Microsystems Laboratories and other volunteers.

It's great to see WPI get recognized for the efforts to bring Java to the thousands of students developing robots for the FRC. Be on the lookout for robots in James Gosling's Toy Show keynote, and for the award presentation to Brad Miller of WPI!

• Duke's Choice Press Release
• Photos of initial WPI student project
• FIRST @ JavaOne
  

CommunityOne
Monday, June 1 - S311736: "Lightning Talks, Part 4/FRC-FIRST Robotic Competition" 2:40 PM - 3:30 PM Esplanade 303

CommunityOne Registration
CommunityOne events are free to all. Register at http://www.cplan.com/communityone2009/w ... gistration

JavaOne
Pavilion - Java Playground
Will have representatives from FIRST, WPI, and several FRC teams. Robots will be demoed in the robot arena. Learn about FIRST, the FIRST Robotics Competition, and Java for FRC. Find out how to get involved!
Monday (June 1) 3:00 pm - 7:00 pm,
Tuesday 11:30 am - 7:30 pm
Wednesday 10:00 am - 4:30 pm
Thursday 10:00 am - 2:00 pm

Thursday, June 4 - TS-4945: FRC-FIRST Robotic Competition 2:50 PM - 3:50 PM Esplanade 305

1.The Java™ platform is an interesting vehicle for teaching kids about programming.
2. FIRST is an organization whose mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering, and technology skills; inspire innovation; and foster well-rounded life abilities such as self-confidence, communication, and leadership.
3. Robots are cool; robotic competitions are even cooler.
What happens when you mix these three things? You come up with a winning combination that lets kids and "adults" have a lot of fun.

What do robots and FIRST have to do with Java™ technology? Come to this session and see firsthand what Java technology is enabling kids to do today with some cool hardware. Get to play with big competition robots and their teams.

I attended the 2009 FIRST Championship April 16-18 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA as part of the Java for FRC announcement. We demoed Java running on several robots, over-the-air debugging, and multi-platform development (Windows, Linux, Mac (and we kept getting asked about Solaris)). We gave a couple of talks with James Gosling about Java for FRC.

This was my first time at a FIRST Championship and it was pretty overwhelming.

• 20,000 people
• Hundreds of FRC, FTC, and FLL teams (and robots)
• Four simultaneous competitions in the Georgia Dome
• The World Congress Center filled with pits, practice fields, presentations, and people

But what was really impressive were the teams. It was really clear that FIRST was succeeding at its mission of inspiring students in science and technology. Students didn't just learn that science was cool - they knew that they were cool. These are kids that are not worried about being called geeks, or anything else for that matter:

Slideshow

As always, check out FIRST Robotics @ Sun for information on getting involved with FIRST.

Here are some upcoming events where you can learn more about FIRST, the FIRST Robotics Competition, Java + FIRST, and FIRST @ Sun.

This Friday, for Sun employees, we will have one or two FRC teams visiting the Burlington, MA campus. They will show off their robots  - and you can learn about what FRC means to them, and about mentoring and volunteer opportunities that exist. I'll also be here to talk about Java on the FRC robots, and should have a robot to demo.

Sun has given FIRST a big platform at JavaOne to show off what FIRST is about. It's also a chance to announce that along with Java being available for the robotics competition next year comes a need for experienced Java developers to mentor teams all across the United States and internationally.

There will be live robot demos in the Pavillion, where you can also talk to teams, mentors, and volunteers about FIRST. There will be a Tech Session describing Java for FRC - both how it was ported and how it can be used (TS-4945), a Birds-Of-a-Feather session for existing FIRST participants as well as though interested in learning more (BOF-4953), and perhaps a comment from James Gosling at his closing keynote!

Keep in mind that the JavaOne Pavilion access is FREE. Students can get access to all JavaOne events FREE. 

*** The event at the Sun campus in Burlington, MA is open to emplyees only.

On April 16th we announced that Java would be available for the FIRST Robotics Competition. This is joint work between Sun and WPI to port Squawk (an open-source Java virtual machine) to the compactRIO robot control system, as well as the WPILib robotics library from C++ to Java. We expect this to be a great addition for FRC teams that have some Java programming experience, and will bring not only the combination of power and safety inherent in Java to robotics programming, but also the ecosystem of Java tools, libraries and learning resources. The exact flavor of Java that will be available is Java ME (Micro Edition), configured with the CLDC and IMP libraries. This is essentially the same flavor of Java that is installed in millions of cell phones (but without the graphic user interface libraries - LCDUI). In addition the system is based on the libraries and SDK of the Sun SPOT project. It includes over-the-air debugger support as part of integration with the NetBeans and Eclipse IDEs and also includes ant-based command line tools.

The Java system will be in closed alpha and beta releases over the Summer and Fall, and will be ship in the "kit of parts" for the 2010 season (if not earlier).  We have also developed a software-only robot emulator that allows you to learn how to develop robotic software in Java using the Sun SPOT APIs (but doesn't yet include the WPILib APIs).

I'll be blogging more about this, including technical details, the Atlanta Championship, and Java + FIRST @ Java One, but here are some pointers to more information:

• usfirst.org
• sunspotworld.com/frc
• FIRST @ Sun
• Gosling's blogs about Java + FIRST
• Java for FIRST announcment
• JavaOne FIRST tech session & BOF

Just a reminder that the Colorado FIRST Robotics Regional competitions are this weekend! This is a free chance to see high school students compete with "gracious professionalism", as well as watch their adult mentors wears funny outfits and tear their remaining hair out.

Just 31 minutes from the Broomfield campus (says Google).

There are more details at FIRST Robotics @ Sun , especially the Event tips page.

(Burlington High School, Team 2876, Boston FRC Regional)

Just a reminder that the Silicon Valley FIRST Robotics Regional competitions are this weekend! Don't miss out on a great chance to watch students turn into engineers - oh, and some robots compete also :-)

There are more details at FIRST Robotics @ Sun , especially the Event tips page.

Xconomy.com had a nice write up of last year's FIRST Robotics Regional in Boston. Maybe they'll promote this year's events in Boston, San Diego, and Seattle.

Just a reminder that the Boston and San Diego FIRST Robotics Regional competitions are this weekend. I'll be visiting the local Sun-related teams in Boston.

There are more details at FIRST Robotics @ Sun , especially the Event tips page.

[Sorry for the repost - going out to the Sun Labs blogroll this time...]

Re: FIRST Robotics Events Over Next Few Weeks.

If you're thinking about going to a competition, it helps to know the rules for the game (it changes every year).  Here's a 3 minute overview:

This is the time of year when the FIRST Robotics Competitions start the regional championships. This is where six weeks of hard work by high-school students and their mentors are put to the test - complete with loud music, cheer leading, flashing lights and major enthusiasm.

If you've ever been curious to learn more about these robotics teams - for your kids, or for yourself as a potential volunteer, this is the way to find out. It's fun and it's free!

 Here's a short list of events near major Sun campuses: