Team Leaders,

Get ready to POWER UP!

With the 2018 kick off only hours away, the known changes for the 2018 FRC control systems are firmed up to a point where teams can be notified and rely on the information to be relevant through the 2018 season. Below you will find a highlight of the changes regarding the CTRE libraries, next in the TLDR section, you will find links to major changes along with a migration guide from CTRE and porting guides the MN CSA crew has started and will be continually updating as needed. And finally below that, in the additional info section, are links to more detail info on the the CTRE changes along with additional resources from the MN CSA crew available this year for all teams.

CTRE Library Change Highlights: – NOTE: this is not all encompassing, see links below for complete info.

TalonSRX support is completely separate from WPILib now, this requires install of CTRE Phoenix Framework.
Added VictorSPX, CANifier and Pigeon support via CTRE Phoenix Framework
CANTalon class is gone, replaced with WPI_TalonSRX
VictorSPX class is WPI_VictorSPX
WPI_TalonSRX and WPI_VictorSPX is CAN only.
PWM Support is provided by WPILib
Some firmware features are not implemented yet: eg; motion profiling

TLDR:

2018 FRC Controls Changes: https://wpilib.screenstepslive.com/s/currentCS/m/getting_started/l/801080-new-for-2018
CTRE Migration Guide: https://github.com/CrossTheRoadElec/Phoenix-Documentation/blob/master/Migration%20Guide.md
MN CSA 2017-2018 Java porting guide: 2017-2018 Java Porting Guide.pdf (https://github.com/firstmncsa/csa_resources/blob/master/Reference%20Materials/2017-2018%20Java%20Porting%20Guide.pdf ) – living document, contact us for items not currently covered, will update.
MN CSA 2017-2018 C++ porting guide: 2017-2018 C++ Porting Guide.pdf (https://github.com/firstmncsa/csa_resources/blob/master/Reference%20Materials/2017-2018%20C%2B%2B%20Porting%20Guide.pdf ) – living document, contact us for items not currently covered, will update.

MN CSA contact info:

Email: firstmn.csa@gmail.com
Slack URL: firstmncsa.slack.com For new Slack users / invite link: https://goo.gl/3yzrJo – To contact CSA’s and other teams in a live session.
Trello Board: https://trello.com/b/rW3CDBfi – To view all support tickets CSA’s open.
Twitter: @firstmncsa – To contact CSA’s via DM.

Additional info:

CTRE – Cross the Road Electronics change information – What, where, why? – This is general information, but contains links to technical info as well.

https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=160858

MN CSA – GitHub repositories: – Code examples (soon), reference documentation, controls related file reference information, csa resources

https://github.com/firstmncsa

MN CSA –  Reference Materials: – Contains all the materials we create for various topics, feel free to suggest new topics.

https://github.com/firstmncsa/csa_resources/tree/master/Reference%20Materials

File Reference Guide: – Contains version info, location and additional info for downloadable files related to FRC control systems.

https://github.com/firstmncsa/csa_resources/blob/master/Reference%20Materials/csa_file_reference.pdf

MN CSA – google drive: – Contains all the control related software and firmware for FRC, documented in file reference guide in GitHub reference materials, we try to keep this as updated as possible, feel free to suggest changes.

goo.gl/STtiAg

MN FIRST – FIRST Community Resources

There is an extensive listing of Resources, including the CSA info on the MN FIRST website:

https://mnfirst.org/first-community-resources/online-assistance/

Looking forward to a great season!
MN CSA crew