Flytrap - Lifecycle-aware objects and multithreaded execution for WPILib/FRC robots

🦋 Features

Some key features of Flytrap:

• 💜 Written in Kotlin

• ⚡️ Fast

• 🦾 Powerful

• ⚙️ Component based

• ⚛️ Null-safe

• 🔒 Thread-safe

• 📊 Parallel execution

• ⏱ Lifecycle-aware

• 🔨 Customizable

• 📦 Modular

• 🔋 Batteries included

Also includes:

• Message based interaction between components via ObjectMessages
• Core components for hardware interaction and communication
• Flytrap Logger
• Debug Server and Remote Configuration
• MultimethodServer component for custom HTTP communication

⚠️ DISCLAIMER: Flytrap is in alpha stage, and it's still under active development. As Flytrap is a new library it's likely to have more issues. That also means core interfaces and references can change at any time.

Please make sure that your team can/will handle any possible problem and future change before using Flytrap in a robot codebase.

We don't take responsibility for any form of failure or unexpected behaviour.

Getting started

Create a robot component

In Flytrap, each component is a LifecycleObject. LifecycleObjects are units that can run periodic task, receive or send messages, and launch servers.

We will create a robot component that will persist during different robot states and modes RobotComponent.kt:

class RobotComponent(context: LifecycleContext) : LifecycleObject(context) {
    override fun onTick(context: ObjectContext<*>) {}
}

Implement custom onCreate

onCreate and onDestroy methods are called once per object. These methods may contain special initialization and destruction code.

We will implement a custom onCreate that logs a simple message using FlytrapLogger RobotComponent.kt:

val tag = "RobotComponent"

override fun onCreate(context: ObjectContext<*>) {
    super.onCreate(context)
    log(tag, "This is my first component!")
}

Create your FlytrapRobot

Your FlytrapRobot class provides your main components for robot and operation modes (auto, teleop).

We will add RobotComponent to our robot class MyRobot.kt:

class MyRobot(context: LifecycleContext) : FlytrapRobot(context) {
    override fun onTick(context: ObjectContext<*>) {}
    
    override fun robotComponent(): ObjectReference<out LifecycleObject> = ObjectReference(RobotComponent::class.java)
}

Define an entrypoint

In order to run your robot code you must define an entrypoint function that will launch the robot.

We will create a new class and add launcher code RobotLauncher.kt:

fun main() {
    runFlytrapRobot(MyRobot::class.java)
}

Congratulations you've just created your own FlytrapRobot 🎉

Now deploy it to your robot using GradleRIO or WPILib plugins

Need help?

Ask your questions on Discord: https://discord.gg/DbTQHenjhK

Seeing a problem? Open an issue on Github.