What we wish we had known
A lot of what you need to figure out is on the 6.270 site or in the posted lecture notes.
Taking your own notes in lecture is always good, but for those times where it just doesn't quite end up sinking in or maybe you have to run out because of a surprisingly long lasting bloody nose, the posted lecture slides/notes are well written and very comprehensive.
For the parts that aren't written up here's a few miscellaneous tips.
Charge your batteries. ALL THE TIME. It'll save you heartache and worry if you never have to go through over-discharging a li po battery. Warning: they have an extremely steep drop off on the discharge curve
Read the .h files in joyos:: joyos/inc for most of them. The files are well documented and give you a good idea about what is already written for you. (like the PID library).
Focus on reliability first and then worry about being efficient. If you can be not quite optimally efficient 90% of the time you'll do better than an awesomely efficient robot that works 30% of the time.
TEST everything. Nothing works the first time giving you lots and lots of opportunities to rejig.
Taking your own notes in lecture is always good, but for those times where it just doesn't quite end up sinking in or maybe you have to run out because of a surprisingly long lasting bloody nose, the posted lecture slides/notes are well written and very comprehensive.
For the parts that aren't written up here's a few miscellaneous tips.
Charge your batteries. ALL THE TIME. It'll save you heartache and worry if you never have to go through over-discharging a li po battery. Warning: they have an extremely steep drop off on the discharge curve
Read the .h files in joyos:: joyos/inc for most of them. The files are well documented and give you a good idea about what is already written for you. (like the PID library).
Focus on reliability first and then worry about being efficient. If you can be not quite optimally efficient 90% of the time you'll do better than an awesomely efficient robot that works 30% of the time.
TEST everything. Nothing works the first time giving you lots and lots of opportunities to rejig.