Trouble with required Labview Templates for FTC 2009

[blt]

The required Labview Templates for FTC for 2009/2010 season does not work.  I have the FTC Student Labview Edition for 2009 that came with the FTC kit on a laptop.  I do not have nor cannot find all of the Read controllers etc that came with Labview 8.5 last year.

Who do I call for support?  I need to talk with someone, probably for hours, on how to get this program to work.  I cannot get anything on Labview to work this year.  This template I am required to download is useless.  I am very frustrated with Ni and US First on this issue.

Thanks,

Team 2975 FTC

[MarkBlack]

Hi Team 2975,

I'm sorry you've been having trouble so far, but I am sure we can get you up and running.  Unfortunately we are not providing phone support for FTC this year, but these forums and the forums on the are moderated by NI technical support engineers and the FTC development team.

The FTC Templates should work out of the box with no additional programming, if you have built your robot base like the one described in the FTC Getting Started Manual.  A printed version of this manual came in the same package as your LabVIEW software and a soft copy can be found at C:\Program Files\National Instruments\LabVIEW 2009\manuals\FTC_Getting_Started.pdf

I think the reason your templates are not working is because FIRST has the wrong templates posted on their website.  We have asked FIRST to correct this. This years FTC Toolkit (2010) is not included on the CDs that installed LabVIEW.  Instead we distributed it online.  Please download and install the FTC Toolkit and NXT Module from here.  There are instructions for this on the package that contained the LabVIEW install DVDs. 

When you have installed the Toolkit and module this year's templates can be found at C:\Program Files\National Instruments\LabVIEW 2009\examples\FTC Toolkit.  A shortcut to this examples folder will also be installed on your desktop. 

blt wrote:

I do not have nor cannot find all of the Read controllers etc that came with Labview 8.5 last year.

You are correct that you do not have them.  These VIs received several bug fixes this summer, and their names and icons changed slightly, but their functionality is identical to last years VIs.  Read Controllers is now called FTC Read Controllers.  This VI as well as the rest of the VIs needed for robot control using joysticks can be found in the FTC Tools palette.  You will need to download and install the NXT Module and FTC Toolkit from the link above in order to have these VIs. 

I hope this helps you get going.  Please post back with any other questions you may have and I will be happy to address them.

Cheers,

Mark

LabVIEW R&D