FIRST partners with NI to provide students with CompactRIO

Jessica MacNeil, Contributing Editor -- Test & Measurement World, 4/17/2008 10:25:00 AM

The FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) organization has selected National Instruments’ CompactRIO embedded control platform as its next-generation FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) robot controller.

Read more about FIRST: Robotic Gladiators The engineers of K-12

FIRST is a nonprofit organization aimed at inspiring young people to be leaders in science and technology through mentor-based programs. It engages and encourages students with a range of robotics competitions including Junior FIRST Lego League, FIRST Lego League, FIRST Technical Challenge, and FIRST Robotics Competition. With the partnership between NI, Lego, and FIRST, 150,000 students in all FIRST competitions will have access to a progressive programming platform starting with Lego MindStorms NXT-G and continuing through NI LabView.

With the CompactRIO platform, high school students will create advanced robots starting in the 2009 FIRST season. Students can program their robots based on the platform in either NI LabView graphical programming software or the ANSI C language. Students will have access to advanced control capabilities and performance, including a 400-MHz PowerPC and FPGA-based I/O, and will be able to create robots that may be driver-controlled or run in fully autonomous mode using wireless monitoring and simulation for more in-competition control and more accurate designs.

“Our goal is to have a FIRST team in every high school and to change the culture in our communities to celebrate excellence in science and engineering the same way we celebrate sports,” said Dean Kamen, founder of FIRST and president of DEKA Research & Development. “It’s the support of partners like NI that is helping FIRST make that goal a reality.”

NI is making a multimillion dollar donation of materials over the next five years to FIRST to provide the CompactRIO system to participating teams. Several key technology suppliers have collaborated with NI to provide the components required to build the CompactRIO control system, including Analog Devices, Boston Engineering, ChipX, Dove Electronics, Freescale, MSI, Texas Instruments, TTI, Westak, Wind River, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and Xilinx.

FIRST, www.usFIRST.org.
National Instruments' academic products and curriculum resourses, www.ni.com/academic/k12.

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