Generally you can test your robot on the ring beforehand. I have a "debug menu" that runs over the serial port. When I power up the robot, if I'm pushing the start button it drops into the debug menu instead of starting the sumo code. I hook the robot up via a USB -> TTL converter, and run HyperTerminal.
I can test my motors, range finders, edge sensors, plus set all the timing constants and thresholds (which are all stored in EEPROM) from the debug menu. The menu prints out as text, and I can hit specific keys on the keyboard (indicated in the menu) to execute each entry.
Since Seeker 2 runs off a finite state machine, it also uses the rest of EEPROM as a state log, which I can view/reset from the debug menu. Basically a debugging aid, it shows a list of the states the FSM went through on the last run.
- Jon