Protecting and Backing Up Your Robot Code

Started in the 2023-2024 season, Tech Tips are segments released in the FIRST Tech Challenge Team E-mail Blast. Sometimes the Tech Tips are included in whole in the email blast, but sometimes there is more content than is reasonable in the email blast so partial content is included in the blast with the rest of the content here.

Protect Your Robot with a Password

This is a gentle reminder that strong passwords and regular backups make for good competition. Even when competing at a Scrimmage before your competition season starts, be sure to change your Wi-Fi password on your Control Hub from the default password of “password” to something only your team knows. Anyone who knows your password can easily gain access to your robot and change or delete your programs, change important settings, or even force your controller to revert to factory settings! And with that said, it’s ALWAYS a good idea to keep backups of your programs - it’s especially important to regularly download all Blocks and OnBot Java programs that are normally only stored on the robot in case anything happens!

OnBot Java Backups

This section is for all those who program in OnBot Java. Have you ever been worried that your OnBot Java programs could suddenly magically vanish? Has it ever happened to you? One lesser-known feature of OnBot Java is automatic backups - each time you “compile all” in OnBot Java the system saves a copy of all source code, up to 30 compilations deep. In order to find these backups, you must connect to the Control Hub via USB from a Windows machine and navigate to the “FIRST” folder on the device’s internal storage. In this folder you’ll find a “java” folder, and within that is the “srcBackups” folder. Here you’ll find zip files containing each backup with a time/date stamp. Happy Programming!

Got any questions about protecting your robot code? Come start or join the conversation on the FTC Community Forums!