5thGear Simulation

Lockheed Martin

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FRC 2010 5thGear Simulation

by 5thGear Simulation

The 5thGear FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) strategy and driver training simulation/tool has been updated to simulate the 2011 FRC game, Logomotion. With continuing support from Lockheed Martin, volunteers annually improve the simulator; and once again, together with FIRST and WPI, they are offering the simulator for FRC Teams and other users to freely download. In an expansion of last FRC season's similar activities, Lockheed Martin and volunteers intend to use 5th Gear in exhibitions and informal tournaments at many FRC regional tournaments and off-season events.

TAG(S): Competitions

Update: Version 4.0.0, featuring Logomotion,  released March 4th, 2011!

The official Q&A forum services for 5th Gear questions and news are donated by FIRST, and are located at this URL: http://forums.usfirst.org/forumdisplay.php?f=1091

Unofficial discussions also occur on the Chief Delphi web site's discussion forums found at this URL: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/portal.php?

Note that the previous competitions, Lunacy and Overdrive, that version 1.1 of the simulator supported have been temporarily disabled; we hope to re-enable them in an upcoming patch!

Recommended Minimum System Requirements

Operating System: Windows XP SP2, or Windows Vista
Processor: 1.6 GHz
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Hard Drive Space: 1 GB
Supported Video Cards:
ATI Radeon X300 or later
ATI Radeon 9600 or later
NVIDIA GeForce 6200 or later
Intel chipsets are less stable, but new models (while untested) should work.
DirectX 9.0c (included in the 5thGear installer)

Installation Instructions

1.Download and install the NVIDIA PhysX engine.
2.Download the Fifth Gear 2010 zip folder from this site.
3.Extract the contents of the zip folder and run “setup.exe”.
4.If prompted, allow installation of the XNA Redistributables, and .NET Framework 3.5. If there is an error during the installation of 5thGear, install these assets first.

Using 5th Gear

With 5th Gear you simulate a match on one to seven computers. Users control the simulated FRC robots as the match is played. Future releases during the Breakaway FRC season will include enabling previous years' competitions. More detailed instructions on the technical aspects of using 5th Gear are in the attached documents.

5th Gear includes three simple robot design options, and currently simulates the driver-controlled portion of FRC matches. Additionally, users can adjust the bulk characteristics of these three robot designs. In this sense, this year’s version is not a robot/machine design tool or a robot simulation. It is a match simulator; and this year, 5th Gear’s creators hope that one of the three simulated robots it includes will be close enough to your teams’ unique design to give you a feel for how matches may play out. For these reasons, it is wise use 5th Gear for strategic and tactical planning, but not the specific design of your team’s robot.

For any questions, comments, or discussions regarding the simulation, please go to the 5th Gear Simulation forums on the FIRST Forums.