For more than 20 years, the NI LabVIEW graphical development platform has revolutionized engineering and science applications. Now, your team can rapidly program the new FIRST controller, cRIO-FRC, using this drag-and-drop, icon-based software.

LabVIEW programs are called virtual instruments, or VIs, because their appearance and operation imitate physical instruments, such as oscilloscopes and multimeters. LabVIEW contains a comprehensive set of tools for acquiring, analyzing, displaying, and storing data, as well as tools to help you troubleshoot code you write. In LabVIEW, you build a user interface, or front panel, with controls and indicators. Controls are knobs, push buttons, dials, and other input mechanisms. Indicators are graphs, LEDs, and other output displays. After you build the user interface, you add code using VIs and structures to control the front panel objects. The block diagram (featured below) contains this code.



During development, you can rely on helpful tools that make programming and understanding LabVIEW an easy task. LabVIEW includes help windows and tips that describe the usage and values of inputs and outputs of each function. Additionally, LabVIEW has the complete functionality of a general-purpose programming language, including data structures, decision-making capabilities, looping structures, and event handlers. The advantage of using LabVIEW is that it reduces the complexity of using these tools and makes programming your FIRST controller more intuitive.

Now that you are familiar with LabVIEW, take the next steps:

Take the LabVIEW Guided Tour

Test-drive LabVIEW

Watch the 14-minute Webcast on cool applications

Read the Get Started with LabVIEW tutorial

Top Reasons to Program in LabVIEW

• Speak “G!” Program how you think - Graphically.
• Go with the Flow. Take advantage of a dataflow programming.
• Easy Writin’. LabVIEW is fun to learn and there are several tools to help with debugging, making the development time quick and easy.

With LabVIEW, your robot can do almost anything! Engineering students at Virginia Tech won third place and $500,000 in the DARPA Urban Challenge using LabVIEW. Watch the demonstration video.