Web lights during competition

[lucas.alvarez96]

Does anybody know if there's a Web API of sorts for FRC? One of our team members managed to get hold of some LED panels, and we wanted to program a script to get our current team match from the web and, using 7 side by side panels, display the match participants. The idea is to hang the panels in the pits, and surround them by RGB LEDs that lit up red or blue depending on the alliance color.

P.S. Would it be legal using a 3G or 4G connection within the pits? The rules only refer to the arena, but better safe than sorry!

Thanks in advance :)

[Whippet]

I believe that you can draw from the FMS twitter feed to retrieve the teams in the matches. No idea how to program that, though.

[darkorbit]

Does anybody know if there's a Web API of sorts for FRC? One of our team members managed to get hold of some LED panels, and we wanted to program a script to get our current team match from the web and, using 7 side by side panels, display the match participants. The idea is to hang the panels in the pits, and surround them by RGB LEDs that lit up red or blue depending on the alliance color.

P.S. Would it be legal using a 3G or 4G connection within the pits? The rules only refer to the arena, but better safe than sorry!

Thanks in advance :)

Concluding to the Game Manual Section 5.5.1 Safety and Security Rules
T4
Teams may not set up their own 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2.4GHz or 5GHz) wireless communication (e.g. access points or ad-hoc networks) in the venue.


A wireless hot spot created by a cellular device is considered an access point.
However if you tether to your phone via a usb cable, you maybe ok. As for WEB API, I don't believe there is one for people to use.

[lucas.alvarez96]

Great, thanks for the info! I might just connect an OTG enabled phone with an arduino to control the lights and run an online script.

[yash101]

You can make a FB/Twitter feed reader in PHP. That could gather the data continuously and process it. Make sure you get a VPS to do it. $~5/month will be cheaper than a $100 bill for overusing your data plan!

You could have the PHP program communicate with a C program to communicate with the Arduino. That Arduino could display the stuff, or you could just use a computer monitor!

Even better would be to have a person in the stands, feeding the data into the sytem. A 900MHz transmitter could connect the stands to the pits! That way, you are away from both 2.4 and 5GHz and the games will continue to run without problems!

[Tommy F.]

You can get to the match schedule for your event pretty easily with frclinks.com, so I would just pull the schedule once from there, and then save it as a file your script could read.

[RyanCahoon]

Try https://github.com/gregmarra/the-blue-alliance/wiki/API-v1-Documentation