FRC and FTC LV

[chuckmerja]

We have both an FRC and FTC team and would like to use LV on each platform.  We'd like to use the same computer(s) for development. Do we need two installs of LV - one for each and do they "play well together" or how do we accomplish a nonconflicting development environment.  THANKS! Chuck Merja, FRC 1696 FTC 0724, 4535

[The_Red_Barron]

Howdy Chuck!

LabVIEW FRC 2011 is built on LV 8.6 and FTC uses LabVIEW Education Edition which is built on LabVIEW 2009 so you will need two installs of LabVIEW, one for each.  Both versions should be able to install next to each other on the same machine without conflicting or causing problems.

-Barron

[chuckmerja]

Oh, I see. Just two more questions. Last year we got several CD's with LV 2009 Student Edition.  We've installed that on several of the laptops. Is that the FTC install or a third install?  It appears to be 2009.

Second question...we are getting a couple Vernier SensorDAQ http://www.vernier.com/mbl/sensordaq.html which look to be NI hardware and use LV.  Will LV_FRC or LV_FTC (2009), or LV Student Ed work for this DAQ - and should we buy that DAQ or a "true Blue NI one" - for about $100 more?  Thanks! C

[chuckmerja]

Sorry, and a third question, although this is a little OT.  We (sci club) are looking at tying GPS to our robots, with the eventual goal of outdoors semiautonomous navigation, but beginning with GPS logging.  What version(s) might support us in doing this, and are we going to need or create some sort of serial port and GPS parsing routines, libraries (don't know exactly the correct term) to do this, or does one of the LV editions we currently have installed have these capabilities?

THANKS!

[The_Red_Barron]

Hey Chuck,

To answer your questions:

1. You will want to install LabVIEW FRC and LabVIEW FTC.  The LabVIEW Student Edition is a third type of LabVIEW that has a limited feature set and there isn't a reason you should need to install it on a machine with LV FTC since both are based on LV 2009.

2. You should be able to use the Vernier SensorDAQ with LabVIEW FRC or LabVIEW FTC by installing the DAQmx driver.  There is a KnowledgeBase article about using the SensorDAQ with LabVIEW and DAQmx here.

3. You will need an interface routine to communicate with your GPS device and interpret the data from it.  I would recommend searching the NI Instrument Driver Network to see if somebody has already developed a driver for your specific GPS device.  If not, you will need to program the interface yourself.

-Barron