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Author Topic: Confused by Axon and Arduino differences  (Read 1914 times)

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Offline ResilientTopic starter

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Confused by Axon and Arduino differences
« on: November 14, 2011, 09:20:44 PM »
I am not asking which to get, I promise! :P

I got a Axon a few years ago, got into hobby robots then got eaten by grad school. Now I have a fair bit of experience in a lot of very high level languages like C# but want to get a project in my portfolio to show that I understand what a register and an interrupt are (and to freshen up on this stuff because it has been several years since my computer arch and assembly language class).

I was planning on making a simple UAV that could fly a path of GPS coordinates and saw that ArduPilot seems to already do this, very well, and is open source. So I am considering contributing to that instead of rolling my own from scratch but am a little confused about the Arduino programming language.

It looks like I can't go too wrong either way as they are both a lot better than C# where the garbage collector is following me around and I have to beat him with a stick to keep him from cleaning up when I don't want him to. But what would I be getting into if I tried to contribute to a Arduino based project? It looks like it is pretty much C++ whereas I am used to C when I was using the Axon. It seems like one of the big issues is with hardware and working with servos, but they have that taken care of. So are there any hidden pitfalls I need to look out for if I do this? Keeping in mind my goal is to have something to show potential employers I can do more than tab-complete code in Visual Studio.

Thanks
« Last Edit: November 14, 2011, 09:27:13 PM by Resilient »

Offline ResilientTopic starter

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Re: Confused by Axon and Arduino differences
« Reply #1 on: November 15, 2011, 01:46:38 AM »
I found a good thread [url ]http://goo.gl/APNPV[/url] over on AVR Freaks discussing AVR vs Arduino.

Seems like I am pretty safe going with the Arduino because I can always just write non-Arduino C code and it should still work.

If anyone has anything else to add, I would love to hear it, but I think I will get the purpose built Arduino UAV board.

Offline joe61

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Re: Confused by Axon and Arduino differences
« Reply #2 on: November 15, 2011, 06:51:04 AM »
It really is just C++ with arduino specific libraries. If you're used to C keep in mind the differences, because they can sometimes be troublesome. For example, type promotion in function argument lists is not the same, the type of a character literal is a char rather than an int, casts are required in C++ that are not required in C, et. Al.

Take a look at clause C.1.3 here. This is a bit old but not so out of date you'd want to pay for an official copy of the final standard. I think this clause is the same as the final.

Other than that, go for it.

Joe

Offline Admin

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Re: Confused by Axon and Arduino differences
« Reply #3 on: November 16, 2011, 10:44:09 AM »
Things have changed since you bought the Axon :P

Watch this video (best to watch in high-res and full screen):

How to Program Axon II in PD

Offline ResilientTopic starter

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Re: Confused by Axon and Arduino differences
« Reply #4 on: November 19, 2011, 10:33:57 PM »
Yeah, it looks like someone turned on easy mode.  :P

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