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nikeairmancurry 28-04-2012 23:42

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Wing (Post 1163661)
I believe the 4 teams on Einstein that did not apply to IRI were invited already... Let's see if they accept!

But to see them actually play the Arch vs Curie and Newton vs Galileo, would make it all the better..

Deetman 28-04-2012 23:43

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Paper airplanes were definitely present in Atlanta in 2004 and 2005.

Anupam Goli 28-04-2012 23:43

Re: Einstein 2012
 
I think they were invited just so they could have that Einstein rematch... but they'll stick around to play in quals and maybe elims.

Racer26 28-04-2012 23:58

Re: Einstein 2012
 
I suspect the biggest question mark of the bunch is 4334.

Calgary's a fairly long way from Indy.

bduddy 29-04-2012 00:01

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by nikeairmancurry (Post 1163665)
But to see them actually play the Arch vs Curie and Newton vs Galileo, would make it all the better..

While I understand the idea, I'm not so sure about some of the things it might lead to. If Galileo loses they'll be forever known, rightly or wrongly, as "the alliance that only won at Championships because of field problems", and they deserve better than that.

Lil' Lavery 29-04-2012 00:06

Re: Einstein 2012
 
The staff at the Georgia Dome was not as tolerant as the staff in St. Louis seem to be about paper airplanes. I know there were attempts at them multiple years, but Dome security quickly put an end to them.

lemiant 29-04-2012 00:11

We'd do it! We were planning on applying and making the treck anyway. Is the invite a real thing?

frdrake 29-04-2012 01:04

Re: Einstein 2012
 
233 software mentor here. I was down on the field for part of it and in the stands for part. Whether we won or lost we didn't want to play like this. We have absolutely no problem with losing cause you're beat by a better robot, but win or lose these matches just were not how we wanted to play the game. There were several problems with our opponents and while they were not so obvious, in the finals matches there were flickers of connectivity issues with some of our bots have longer bouts of "sudden" connection issues (233 in F1 and 987 in F2). I watched our robots more but I also heard there were issues with 180 in F2.

To the comment about sucking the excitement out of the air, it really did. The general feeling was that the entire crowd was pumped and everyone felt a real tingle of excitement after each divisional elimination match. After the Einstein matches though there wasn't rampant cheering, there were no exciting rallies or awesome blocks. It just felt hollow, because everyone knew that no matter who won or lost, it probably wasn't going to be based on robot design or driver skill or strategy.

As a mentor I feel bad for how it ended, but I feel even worse for how it ended for our students. Mentors can come back next year and go again but we had a good number of students that are seniors that this was their last go at it, this is the last feeling they're going to get from FIRST unless they decide to come back in the future and be mentors themselves.

As far as the issues themselves, I'm not sure what caused it, but I will say that Pink went through divisional matches and never had any period of connectivity issues, this was the first it appeared. I don't know they could have done anything differently, I think they knew it was a raw deal all the way around and all the EI teams I think recognize it. I just hope they can fix the causes of it and we can move on.

So congrats again to 16, 25 and 180, I know I talked to most of you there. All of the EI alliances were fierce competitors and I think we all want to be remembered for our performances in our division finals instead of what came out of the EI matches.

Mark Holschuh 29-04-2012 01:38

Re: Einstein 2012
 
I would like to congratulate teams 16, 25 and 180. Your alliance played great!

I would also like to thank our alliance partners 118 and 548. Both teams are well organized, highly disciplined, and extremely talented. It was a lot of fun developing strategies and playing with you. Who knows how far our alliance would have gotten if not for the communications issues on the Einstein field. A special shout out to their scouting teams, as the information you provided was absolutely the best I have ever seen.

I don’t know if we will ever know what was really causing teams to lose communications at the Championships. I know our team struggled with them at the Wisconsin Regional, and found the root cause to be a number of electrical issues with the robot.

Lastly we would also like to thank all of the dedicated volunteers at the Championship. You are the reason why FIRST is so great!

qzrrbz 29-04-2012 02:14

Re: Einstein 2012
 
While Einstein dead robot issues were obvious to the whole crowd, how many of the divisional elims had similar problems?

Pretty sure 1717/469/2471 would have rather have played all their matches with all guns firing! Were there others?

lorem3k 29-04-2012 02:20

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by bduddy (Post 1163679)
While I understand the idea, I'm not so sure about some of the things it might lead to. If Galileo loses they'll be forever known, rightly or wrongly, as "the alliance that only won at Championships because of field problems", and they deserve better than that.

I think some people may already (wrongly) have this impression of them.

EricH 29-04-2012 03:30

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by qzrrbz (Post 1163789)
Pretty sure 1717/469/2471 would have rather have played all their matches with all guns firing! Were there others?

Pretty sure I can say the same thing about 330 and 68--both had extended time periods where they were immobile. Kept the division semis close...

qzrrbz 29-04-2012 03:43

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by EricH (Post 1163800)
Pretty sure I can say the same thing about 330 and 68--both had extended time periods where they were immobile. Kept the division semis close...

Didn't realize alliance 3 was sitting still, too -- the "luxury" of viewing remotely and being a slave to what the cameramen thought "interesting" at the time. That makes this whole result even more disheartening.

There's always IRI...

EricH 29-04-2012 04:00

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by qzrrbz (Post 1163803)
Didn't realize alliance 3 was sitting still, too -- the "luxury" of viewing remotely and being a slave to what the cameramen thought "interesting" at the time. That makes this whole result even more disheartening.

Watching the webcast, there was at least one time when both 330 and 1717 weren't moving at the same time, same area of the field (Red's scoring side). Not fun. In another match (F-1, I think), 68 spent much of the match immobile.

(For those not paying attention, this particular set of matches was Newton Semi 2, 1717/469/2471 against 68/330/639.)

And agreed on IRI. I think that IRI needs to have two sets of "special" matches: MAR champs/MSC champs and Einstein Revisited. Single elimination, comm issues are an immediate match reset.

qzrrbz 29-04-2012 04:46

Re: Einstein 2012
 
OK, that's Newton #1 (on Einstein), #2, #3 all immobile at some point or other.

How about the other divisions?

Botwoon 29-04-2012 07:00

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by qzrrbz (Post 1163808)
OK, that's Newton #1 (on Einstein), #2, #3 all immobile at some point or other.

How about the other divisions?

The Curie alliance was fine on comms on our field.

George Nishimura 29-04-2012 08:39

Re: Einstein 2012
 
So what happens at the end of this hypothetical "Einstein revisited"? Especially if 180/16/25 don't win, what exactly does it achieve? The winners won't become World Champions [especially because the conditions are different, you can't claim that this result is what would have happened on Einstein].

If it's for fun, and everyone's good-natured about it, and all teams are willing to participate, I'd be all for it.

But I fear it's not going to end well, and it's not going to bring any justice to proceedings.

Don Wright 29-04-2012 09:37

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Gnishi2011 (Post 1163824)
So what happens at the end of this hypothetical "Einstein revisited"? Especially if 180/16/25 don't win, what exactly does it achieve? The winners won't become World Champions [especially because the conditions are different, you can't claim that this result is what would have happened on Einstein].

If it's for fun, and everyone's good-natured about it, and all teams are willing to participate, I'd be all for it.

But I fear it's not going to end well, and it's not going to bring any justice to proceedings.

I agree 100%. Let IRI be IRI...

I also believe that even though there are a lot of smart people in here discussing ideas about what is the problem and how to fix and things about the field not being used, etc...I don't think that many of you know really how everything operates and what goes on behind the scenes. (neither do I). It's all conjecture.

What we do know is that I'm sure this is now a priority at all levels of FIRST and something will be done about it. We may not hear a public statement from them until kick-off or until beta testing 2012... But I bet things change.

Chi Meson 29-04-2012 10:26

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Gnishi2011 (Post 1163824)
So what happens at the end of this hypothetical "Einstein revisited"? Especially if 180/16/25 don't win, what exactly does it achieve? The winners won't become World Champions [especially because the conditions are different, you can't claim that this result is what would have happened on Einstein].

If it's for fun, and everyone's good-natured about it, and all teams are willing to participate, I'd be all for it.

But I fear it's not going to end well, and it's not going to bring any justice to proceedings.

Also agreed. We don't want to require that the winning alliance must show up to validate their win.

LeelandS 29-04-2012 11:01

Re: Einstein 2012
 
All controversy aside, congratulations to the new world champion, 16/25/180, The Raider Spam Squad (I toyed with Baxter Spam-Botics, but it doesn't sound quite as nice).

And a round of applause to 233/987/207. They were great matches (complications aside). 1126 has a soft spot in our hearts for PINK. We had the honor of teaming with 233 at IRI last year, and got to work with an amazing team (for a brief time, but nevertheless). 233, like ourselves, is one of the teams considered one of the best to have never won the world championship (not saying we're anywhere near the level PINK is. Not even close). PINK is one of my favorite team, they always build great robots, and we hope they don't need to wait too much longer to win the big one we all know they deserve.

Personally, I was hoping the 2056/1114/4334 alliance would take the gold home, but complications obviously prevented that.

I feel there is an unnecessary amount of backlash towards FIRST. One of the major selling points of FIRST is that we're every bit as fun and competitive as a sporting event, but we all conduct ourselves in a professional manner. Right now, that's not what I'm seeing. Yes, the complications on Einstein are disappointing. We all want to see the best of the best square off on Einstein and put on some great matches. Yes, I'd like to know what happened. But a lot of people seem to be crucifying FIRST for field issue when no one really knows what happened.

What a friend of mine hypothesized was that the targeting systems and such on the robots sucked up too much bandwidth from the FMS, and the easiest way to relive that pressure was to shut robots off for a while. We experiences a similar problem at Finger Lakes, and every team was asked to lower the Frames per Second of their camera. While I'm not sure if that's what happened, and I know I'm not really well versed in how the FMS operates, it seems like a logical idea, and certainly proves that maybe it wasn't JUST the field that was the problem.

What I'm getting at is, maybe it's a little premature to be seeking a pound of flesh from FIRST when we don't know the whole story. Maybe it was the robots, maybe it was the field, maybe it was the robot's interaction with the field. I suggest we wait and see what FIRST says on the matter, if they say anything. Until then, we're largely jumping to conclusions.

rjbarra 29-04-2012 11:09

Re: Einstein 2012
 
It is time to get CISCO or Juniper as sponsors and put in a bullet proof network. Einstien should have been tested with practice matches. I will be talking with Cisco this week.

Anupam Goli 29-04-2012 11:13

Re: Einstein 2012
 
In 09 and 10, how effective were the Linksys modules?

rjbarra 29-04-2012 11:23

Re: Einstein 2012
 
http://www.automation.com/content/ni...modules-for-io

sgreco 29-04-2012 12:06

Re: Einstein 2012
 
It's too bad that Einstein came down to this. I don't know the details of the problem, but if FIRST addresses nothing else this off-season, they need to address comm problems on the field. This simply cannot happen on the biggest stage, or any lower stage for that matter. It's disappointing in a sense for the teams that won to know that even though they were very deserving champions, there will be some form of an asterisk next to their championship title. It's also disappointing for the teams that lost on Einstein because they will never know exactly what could have happened if they were given a fair chance, with all the robots moving, to win. It's very possible that the winning alliance would have won anyway, regardless of comm issues since everyone was suffering from them. They are very deserving, and I congratulate them on what they were able to do. The Einstein finals were shaping up to be epic. We had a rookie appear on Einstein, 1114 and 2056 were allied together. Hall of fame team 16 was going for their first championship, along side 25 who already had a title to their name. Pink, arguably the best team never to win a championship, was battling to finally take home the hardware with 987 who had beat them on Einstein in 2007 (feels like yesterday). I believe 118 was making their first trip to Einstein along side 548, who was right in the middle of playing their best competition ever to date. It's really a shame, and I hope FIRST addresses this very soon. Something needs to be done about the comm issues. It's been a big problem for teams at all levels of competition, and it simply cannot happen again. We will never know quite how epic these finals could have been, but it will go down in history as yet another FIRST championship, and hopefully successes of next year will overshadow everything that went wrong this year.

Dad1279 29-04-2012 12:49

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by LeelandS (Post 1163858)
.......I feel there is an unnecessary amount of backlash towards FIRST. ......

Then you have probably never had your robot randomly die, with no chance to debug/repair/fix a problem that may or may not repeat itself, and may be better or worse at a different regional. It has happened to us, our alliance partners, probably 10% of the teams at any given regional, and has determined the outcome of many (if not all) regional events for the last two years.

This should have been addressed sooner (last year), Obviously the problem was acknowledged by adding the data logging this year. The FTA should make debugging info available, and First should release enough info about the FMS to allow us to debug the situation.

Just to put a dollar amount on it, I'd wager the average team spends more than $10,000 per event. 10 matches per event, $1000/match, $3000 per alliance, $6000 per match for 6 robots on the field. If I was paying a vendor $3000/minute for communications & control, I'd think it reasonable to expect 100% communications.

CalTran 29-04-2012 13:11

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Considering how much time over on Archimedes they spent, during qualifications, trying to get 1018 up and running (Even going so far as to tether them up to the system for testing(?)), I feel although something to this effect should have been implemented on Einstein.
While it's true that 180-25-16 put up amazing matches, especially with 180 and 25 just clearing balls faster than anything I've ever seen, it would have been nice to see 6v6 matches on Einstein.
Is there anything better they could have done? In retrospect, yes. While thinking on the fly? Probably not. You could see the head FTA running around the Red Alliance side during the matches (Kept track of him via his hat) clearly trying something.

Ironically, Einstein himself had a quote to match this:
Insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result.

bduddy 29-04-2012 13:55

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by LeelandS (Post 1163858)
What a friend of mine hypothesized was that the targeting systems and such on the robots sucked up too much bandwidth from the FMS, and the easiest way to relive that pressure was to shut robots off for a while. We experiences a similar problem at Finger Lakes, and every team was asked to lower the Frames per Second of their camera. While I'm not sure if that's what happened, and I know I'm not really well versed in how the FMS operates, it seems like a logical idea, and certainly proves that maybe it wasn't JUST the field that was the problem.

This is not in any way an excuse. The entire system was provided by FIRST, and as far as I know no bandwidth limits or restrictions were given. If FIRST wants to advertise these advanced capabilities, including camera streams, then they need to provide a system that can actually support them.

jspatz1 29-04-2012 14:00

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by martin417 (Post 1163499)
Since the advent of the CrIO in 2009, we have found that if we turned the robot on in the queue (as directed by the FTA and volunteers), prior to the FMS displaying our team number, we had issues 100% of the time. If we waited until we were on the field with our team number displaying on the FMS, before we turned the bot on, we had no issues. This has caused friction between our drive team and the volunteers and the FTA at every regional, but especially this year at North Carolina. Every year, we confirm the behavior in front of the FTA in a practice match that if we turned on in queue, without our team number displayed on the FMS, we have many problems, camera issues, encoder and / or gyro issues, loss of comms, or extremely long delay in connecting to the field.

We have had this same experience, and on the advise of an FTA started rebooting our robot on the field after others were on. This seemed to help at our second regional event this year, but not at Champs. We had persistent control issues in virtually every match on Curie. Kudos to our incredible driver for scratching and clawing his way to a #4 seed result with only partial control of his machine. We are among many other teams who will wonder what they might have achieved with full control of their robot.

LeelandS 29-04-2012 14:54

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Dad1279 (Post 1163896)
Then you have probably never had your robot randomly die, with no chance to debug/repair/fix a problem that may or may not repeat itself, and may be better or worse at a different regional. It has happened to us, our alliance partners, probably 10% of the teams at any given regional, and has determined the outcome of many (if not all) regional events for the last two years.

This should have been addressed sooner (last year), Obviously the problem was acknowledged by adding the data logging this year. The FTA should make debugging info available, and First should release enough info about the FMS to allow us to debug the situation.

Just to put a dollar amount on it, I'd wager the average team spends more than $10,000 per event. 10 matches per event, $1000/match, $3000 per alliance, $6000 per match for 6 robots on the field. If I was paying a vendor $3000/minute for communications & control, I'd think it reasonable to expect 100% communications.

No, I know we, as I'm sure with every team in FIRST, have had our own issues with communication. Now, I'm a little saddened to say they've never influenced the world championship (I wish we've been to the finals of Einstein), but nevertheless. Yeah, it's frustrating to suddenly lose control of your robot and never know what happened or if it will happen again. But I just don't think it's right to seek blood from FIRST because no one has any clue what happened. Now, I'll agree, it seems odd that suddenly teams who, for the most part, experienced minimal connection issues prior suddenly started dying. And yeah, that points to a problem on the FIRST end. But until we actually find out what happened, can we just start throwing accusations are FIRST? Well, apparently we can. Because people are. And that's not what we're supposed to be doing.

FIRST isn't about the matches. I've said it before, I'll say it again: The matches are a means to an end. The matches are played to give kids a median to get inspired. Playing to win is not what FIRST is about. With or without connection issues, the kids on each team engineered great pieces of machinery. Yeah, we didn't get to see them play the matches to the end, uninterrupted. And yeah, it's reasonable to expect full field functionality for the price we pay in registration. And yeah, maybe precautions should have been taken. But precautions for what? We don't know what happened. I doubt most people at FIRST know what happened. So until then, can we really just rage at FIRST and the people who PUT ON ALL THIS TO BEGIN WITH? We're going to start throwing accusations at the people who allow us to do what we do? I just don't understand how we can act as such without even being sure what the problem was.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bduddy (Post 1163918)
This is not in any way an excuse. The entire system was provided by FIRST, and as far as I know no bandwidth limits or restrictions were given. If FIRST wants to advertise these advanced capabilities, including camera streams, then they need to provide a system that can actually support them.

I'm not trying to excuse anything. I'm merely trying provide a scenario in which the FMS wasn't the only thing at fault. Yeah, maybe the field wasn't perfect, but it wasn't like it just randomly decided to start dropping teams at a whim. FIRST tries to provide us with the best experience possible, but of course there are going to be flaws in every system. You could spent a month straight refining a system, but I guarantee someone will find a way to break it. That's the nature of the game. I'm just trying to get people to see that there's no reason to be jumping on FIRST's back because the field MAY not have worked the entire season.

NickTosta 29-04-2012 15:03

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by LeelandS (Post 1163858)
I feel there is an unnecessary amount of backlash towards FIRST. One of the major selling points of FIRST is that we're every bit as fun and competitive as a sporting event, but we all conduct ourselves in a professional manner. Right now, that's not what I'm seeing. Yes, the complications on Einstein are disappointing. We all want to see the best of the best square off on Einstein and put on some great matches. Yes, I'd like to know what happened. But a lot of people seem to be crucifying FIRST for field issue when no one really knows what happened.

The backlash is very necessary given the circumstances. You see, the problem isn't the existence of field issues; the problem is the pervasiveness of the field issues AND the fact that nobody knows how to solve them.

Consider this: you go to play a match, your autonomous works just fine, then the robot doesn't move for the rest of the match. After the match the FTA tells you that there is a glitch with the firmware on the cRIO and that you need to re-image it, and that will solve the problem. You are angry that you lost a match, but you know exactly how to fix the problem and you know it won't happen again. This scenario does happen in some cases, like the USB hub not plugged in / needs to be unplugged and plugged back in thing that occurs from time to time.

Now let's consider what has also been happening this season: you go to play a match, and for a period of time during the match (either part of teleop, all of teleop, or the entire match) your robot does nothing. After the match, the FTA tells you he has no idea what the problem is but that the problem can't be the field and that it has to be your robot. The FTA does all he can to help you find the issue throughout the competition, but to no avail. You keep losing matches due to some mystery issue that you can't solve and go home with nothing.

Do you see why people are so angry?

If people had answers as to why these comm issues were happening, if people knew how to solve the problem, nobody would be complaining! That's why there isn't a massive thread on CD right now about how FIRST needs to fix the USB hub problem - that's because it's a simple problem that only occurs once, the FTA knows how to diagnose it, and everyone knows how to fix it.

These issues have been extremely widespread this year, and still nobody knows what is going on. That's why it is so infuriating, and that is why FIRST absolutely needs to do something about this.


edit: And in response to LeeLandS above me, part of the reason a lot of people are calling for blood is that FIRST has repeatedly told teams that the problem is with their robots, not with the FMS. If the problem is with the robot, then that suggests that there is something in the control system that teams can fix to ensure their robots work. The fact that FIRST can barely tell us where the problem is, nevermind how to fix it, is pretty scary. It means that you have no idea whether or not you will have control of your robot.

Ultimately, I don't care where the problem is or what causes it, and I don't think a lot of other people do either. FMS, cRio, the D-link, it doesn't matter. I just want to know that if my robot doesn't move somebody is going to be around that knows why and will ensure it doesn't happen again.

LeelandS 29-04-2012 15:09

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by NickTosta (Post 1163944)
Do you see why people are so angry?

Of course I see why people are angry. I'd be furious as heck if it cost my team Einstein. But what I don't agree with it people are taking to a public forum and bashing FIRST's work on the field. People are absolutely entitled to express themselves in a public domain, but it just seems unnecessary to me that people are now hating on FIRST because the field could perform. Do I think there's an issue? Of course. Am I going to take up arms against FIRST? No. If anything, I owe FIRST the benefit of the doubt, at least.

NickTosta 29-04-2012 15:16

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by LeelandS (Post 1163950)
Of course I see why people are angry. I'd be furious as heck if it cost my team Einstein. But what I don't agree with it people are taking to a public forum and bashing FIRST's work on the field. People are absolutely entitled to express themselves in a public domain, but it just seems unnecessary to me that people are now hating on FIRST because the field could perform. Do I think there's an issue? Of course. Am I going to take up arms against FIRST? No. If anything, I owe FIRST the benefit of the doubt, at least.

Oh, i see what you're saying. Yeah, there's definitely no reason to say that FIRST is terrible or anything like that; in fact, I feel that the 2012 Championship Event went significantly better than championships last year. Having all the fields in the dome and such was fantastic. FIRST definitely did a lot of things right this year. It's just a shame that the comm issues, starting at a regional level and working their way all the way up to Einstein, have to overshadow it all, and now FIRST has to do something about it.

I'd say that if FIRST releases a statement about it within the next few days, and a solution within the next couple months, we can't really complain. I'd say the only scenario in which we can truly start bashing FIRST is if they try to sweep it under the rug.

Kevin Sevcik 29-04-2012 15:25

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by LeelandS (Post 1163938)
FIRST isn't about the matches. I've said it before, I'll say it again: The matches are a means to an end. The matches are played to give kids a median to get inspired. Playing to win is not what FIRST is about. With or without connection issues, the kids on each team engineered great pieces of machinery. Yeah, we didn't get to see them play the matches to the end, uninterrupted. And yeah, it's reasonable to expect full field functionality for the price we pay in registration. And yeah, maybe precautions should have been taken. But precautions for what? We don't know what happened. I doubt most people at FIRST know what happened. So until then, can we really just rage at FIRST and the people who PUT ON ALL THIS TO BEGIN WITH? We're going to start throwing accusations at the people who allow us to do what we do? I just don't understand how we can act as such without even being sure what the problem was.

I'll grant you for the sake of argument that the sole and only purpose of the matches and competition are a means to an end to get kids excited about engineering. Given that, these comms issues are a huge problem for FIRST. If a rookie team runs into this problem and has a non-functional robot for an entire regional, how inspired are the kids? How likely are they to come back? If a potential 2013 rookie is watching Einstein, the pinnacle of our sport, and sees several of our greatest teams with broken, non-working robots, isn't that going to dampen their enthusiasm a bit?

To summarize, many of us aren't upset with FIRST because great teams were brought low by this glitch. We're upset because FIRST is shooting itself in the foot and embarrassing itself on a national level with technical problems that someone there should have known about and solved or mitigated by now. We're upset because we care about FIRST's goals, and FIRST is making it harder for us to achieve those goals.

EricH 29-04-2012 15:31

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by LeelandS (Post 1163938)
And yeah, that points to a problem on the FIRST end. But until we actually find out what happened, can we just start throwing accusations are FIRST? Well, apparently we can. Because people are. And that's not what we're supposed to be doing.

I don't think people are directly going after FIRST. We're going after the system FIRST provides. There is a difference. We're saying that the system does not work. Because FIRST provides the system and expects us to work with it, we expect FIRST to fix it, which they haven't exactly done well in the past. They've given it a pretty good shot. This year, it just wasn't good enough.

Quote:

Playing to win is not what FIRST is about. With or without connection issues, the kids on each team engineered great pieces of machinery. Yeah, we didn't get to see them play the matches to the end, uninterrupted. And yeah, it's reasonable to expect full field functionality for the price we pay in registration. And yeah, maybe precautions should have been taken. But precautions for what? We don't know what happened. I doubt most people at FIRST know what happened. So until then, can we really just rage at FIRST and the people who PUT ON ALL THIS TO BEGIN WITH? We're going to start throwing accusations at the people who allow us to do what we do? I just don't understand how we can act as such without even being sure what the problem was.
First, I agree that playing to win is not what FIRST is about. But after that, please replace FIRST with FRC, FIRST Robotics Competition. There is a difference. This is a competition. I don't compete for second place, I play to win. If this is not a competition, then why do we compete at all?

It's reasonable, this being a competition, to expect that anything provided by the competition organizers will meet spec. Try playing a night NFL game without the lights. A hockey game when the ice is very soft. A soccer game when the lines have been worn down by weather/lawnmowing/playing, and not repainted. Because items that FRC either supplied or spec'd failed at a critical time, and nothing appears to have been done, on multiple chances, to fix it we can indeed say that FRC needs to try to fix the field connections, whether on the robot end or the field end. Boy would I like for it to be on the robots--then it means the system works. But doggonit, if a robot is working "perfectly" and the only thing that changes is the field and it doesn't work, then I'll tell you that the robot sure ain't the first place I'm lookin' for that problem's cause!

Quote:

I'm just trying to get people to see that there's no reason to be jumping on FIRST's back because the field MAY not have worked the entire season.
Einstein's entire season was spent in storage. Most of the other fields seemed to have issues that were traceable to one or two units. Einstein should have been the issue-free field because, after all, it didn't get 300 teams trying to connect through it, possibly breaking stuff. Instead, it had 12 teams, who had worked well up until Einstein. This was Einstein's entire season, and it didn't work properly--either that, or the robots, which had connected and had largely problem-free operation the entire season, suddenly and completely died.

For the rest of the statement, I agree that someone will find a way to break any system. But if 1/6, or is it more like 1/3 or 1/2 of the users at a given time the system is supposed to be working are having trouble, that someone is most likely the system itself. Am I saying the FMS is the culprit? No. I'm saying that something in the field is the most likely culprit. Whether it's the FMS or some 25-cent resistor in the boxes or the wireless networks I don't know. But if I'm FRC HQ, I'm going to be going in with as many experts as I can find to solve the problem.

PiKman 29-04-2012 15:43

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Ian Curtis (Post 1163616)

For those of you that were there, did the non-moving robots suck the energy out of the competition?

The energy was definitely sucked right out of the crowd, and that's tough to do at the FIRST Championships. However, the crowd was already being pulled down by the Einstein schedule of events leading up to the first match. The stands were full by 3:00, yet the festivities didn't start until after the scheduled 4:00 time. Then, the pre-match speeches were the lengthiest I've seen in the seven CMP events I've attended. The crowd was pretty well anesthetized when the first match started at (I think) 5:20. Then, the non-moving robots and feeling of indecision on whether to even cheer for the winner put a dagger into the Einstein portion of the event. It was striking to see the speeches and awards continue with virtually no public acknowledgement of what was happening on the field, a real "fiddling while Rome burns" moment. In all, the crowd sat there for four hours to see 20 minutes of robot action (and partial inaction).

cgmv123 29-04-2012 16:04

Re: Einstein 2012
 
1 Attachment(s)
Quote:

Originally Posted by rjbarra (Post 1163860)
It is time to get CISCO or Juniper as sponsors and put in a bullet proof network. Einstien should have been tested with practice matches. I will be talking with Cisco this week.

The FMS access point is a CISCO product. The Control System advisor that helped us with our one hangup said it was ~$10,000. I don't know the model number. I'm trying to find out, but I have nothing so far. It's about the size of the D-Link, but with 6 antennas sticking out the top.

Edit: the one place I thought the details would be doesn't have it. All the Field setup manual says is "Field Access Point" and "Cisco radio". It does have an image though. Still looking.

tanmaker 29-04-2012 16:26

Re: Einstein 2012
 
If it hadn't been for the storm, I would have left the arena long before the final matches were played, along with the 3 other alumni that were with me. We were embarrassed to be apart of the organization while we were there.

All four of us have dealt with the system the past 4 years it's been in use, with myself being a ref the past 3, and being right on the field while things like this happened. We all agreed that the issue had to be the field, it was the only explanation that made sense to us. But here is the real reason we were so upset and disappointed with FIRST/FRC: After replaying the first 2 matches with the same problems occurring, FIRST/FRC refused to verbally acknowledge the problem and let spectators know what is going on. They played right through the problems, and didn't stop when they saw the same problem was happening in subsequent matches. Those of us in the stands saw that something was wrong, and we deserve to know what was going on and what was being done to fix it. Playing it off like there was no problem at all was extremely insulting.

I just hope the winning alliance recognizes that something wasn't quite right, and agree to play at IRI.

RyanN 29-04-2012 16:37

Re: Einstein 2012
 
I'm actually glad this happened on Einstein. Maybe this issue will get the attention it deserves. I feel terrible for all the teams on Einstein that had the problem though. It really is heartbreaking to see big name teams go down for no apparent reason and have the finger pointed at themselves as the problem.

Many teams have been plagued by this issue this year at the regional level. An issue that is mysterious and unknown. No explanation, and FIRST has been just brushing it off as robot problems.

I think it has been pretty well documented here, and by the CTA that the issues do not involve a team's robot, but FIRST has not come out with any official documentation.

Their stance to us about Bayou was that they would check the logs AFTER the Championship... Why the heck would they wait until AFTER the Championship to figure out our problems, or any teams with field communication problems?

This should have been handled when the Regionals were going on to ensure that the issues would not come back.

I expect FIRST to come out with an official statement. I don't honestly care that we didn't work in Bayou. What I do care about is our reputation as a team with a well-built robot that runs every match no matter what. We proved ourselves at the LSR, but Bayou, we couldn't run a single full match, and may times were bypassed and placed as a No-Show robot.

The issue with us was not with the cRIO. Communication & Code lights went red, and we dropped the camera when we dropped communication. If it was the cRIO rebooting, we would still see the camera coming through. So that narrows it down to just one single device not working on our robot. The DLINK router.

What is the DLINK dependent on to run? The 12V-to-5V converter, PDB, main switch, anderson connector, and battery. Those are the failure points for the DLINK dependancies. We ruled that out early in our diagnosis, and I'm pretty sure (actually 100% confident) that the teams that made it to Einstein had good power connections to their DLINK. It would be something if EVERY team on Einstein made it there with bad power going to their DLINK. I'm also confident that the teams on Einstein are established enough to make sure that their connections are good.

That narrows down our problem to the DLINK router itself, and the field.

Here's what I did to our router to try to stimulate our problem. In the pits at Bayou, I pulled our DLINK router off of our robot and slammed, and I mean slammed, slapped, hit, punished, the DLINK router against an aluminum extrusion on our robot. It did not fail a single time. Of course, we were hard wired, but that proved to me that the issue wasn't with the wiring on the DLINK.

So now we have narrowed down our problem to the wireless components of the router, and the field. At Bayou, we were allowed to run our robot wirelessly, on a stand, on the side of the field on Friday night. You can bet we abused our robot trying to get the thing to drop, but we couldn't. It worked PERFECTLY. It had also worked PERFECTLY that same afternoon during lunch time. We also beat the crap out of robot then and didn't lose any packets or drop.

This, to me, proves that it is not a robot issue.

So what was different during those times? The crowd wasn't there. During lunch time, there were only a few people in the stands, and on Friday night, no one was there except us and another team that started experiencing some communication issues.

I honestly think the air is saturated with radio signals. This is how I'm thinking about it. A radio wave is not any different from a light wave, right? Except on a different wavelength, right? You have a few white lights, but you're not worried about the white lights, what you're worried about is the flashing red light. It's easy to follow the red light when there are just a few white lights, but imagine if you have tons of white lights, and not just white lights, blue ones, green dones, ultraviolet ones, every color... Now try to follow the red light you started off with.

It's impossible. And to amuse myself some more... different colored light is just a different wavelength. The channels and frequencies of radio waves of the routers we use, and the cell phones we use are no different. People much smarter than I am have figured out ways to filter out all these other frequencies, but there is a limit to how many radio waves there can be at a single time.

I imagine that there were tons of people in the stands, wrapping around the field, during the Einstein matches. Each person (assumed) is carrying a cell phone. Many of them on laptops. Instead of having a faraday cage where no signals go through, you're concentrating all the signals from every cell phone to the field like a parabolic dish.

Basically, my best guess is that the issues teams are having are interference. Why some teams don't have it, and some teams do is unknown to me. I noticed a big difference, minus the actual ability to connect and remain connected to the field that Friday night at Bayou. The difference was dropped packets. When we were on the field with 5 other robots and the crowd, we had very high packet loss and latency. When no one was there on Friday night, or even the one match we played on Thursday, when no one was there, we had very low packet loss and latency.

Steven Donow 29-04-2012 16:48

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by RyanN (Post 1163987)
I honestly think the air is saturated with radio signals. This is how I'm thinking about it. A radio wave is not any different from a light wave, right? Except on a different wavelength, right? You have a few white lights, but you're not worried about the white lights, what you're worried about is the flashing red light. It's easy to follow the red light when there are just a few white lights, but imagine if you have tons of white lights, and not just white lights, blue ones, green dones, ultraviolet ones, every color... Now try to follow the red light you started off with.

It's impossible. And to amuse myself some more... different colored light is just a different wavelength. The channels and frequencies of radio waves of the routers we use, and the cell phones we use are no different. People much smarter than I am have figured out ways to filter out all these other frequencies, but there is a limit to how many radio waves there can be at a single time.

I imagine that there were tons of people in the stands, wrapping around the field, during the Einstein matches. Each person (assumed) is carrying a cell phone. Many of them on laptops. Instead of having a faraday cage where no signals go through, you're concentrating all the signals from every cell phone to the field like a parabolic dish.

Basically, my best guess is that the issues teams are having are interference. Why some teams don't have it, and some teams do is unknown to me. I noticed a big difference, minus the actual ability to connect and remain connected to the field that Friday night at Bayou. The difference was dropped packets. When we were on the field with 5 other robots and the crowd, we had very high packet loss and latency. When no one was there on Friday night, or even the one match we played on Thursday, when no one was there, we had very low packet loss and latency.

Excellent analogy with the light waves, but my question in response to this theory (and I'm nowhere near an expert, or knowledgeable at all in this field, so it's not rhetorical, it's an actual question) is if it happened so strongly at this level on Einstein this year, why has it not happened in the past? Wasn't last year's control/field system as a whole(minus the Kinect) the EXACT same components as this season?

sanddrag 29-04-2012 16:52

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by RyanN (Post 1163987)
When we were on the field with 5 other robots and the crowd, we had very high packet loss and latency. When no one was there on Friday night, or even the one match we played on Thursday, when no one was there, we had very low packet loss and latency.

I am no expert in radio waves, but I can say we've experienced the same thing. We ran our robot in the school's talent show. We did a trial run with nobody there with great connectivity from probably 70 feet away. In the actual event, we had about 900 students all presumably with cellphones (on), and we were struggling with latency and packet loss even over a 30-foot distance to the robot. There has to be some correlation.

One of the things I want to know is, of all the teams that didn't work at some point on Einstein, what code language were they running?

RyanN 29-04-2012 17:00

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by stevend1994 (Post 1163995)
Excellent analogy with the light waves, but my question in response to this theory (and I'm nowhere near an expert, or knowledgeable at all in this field, so it's not rhetorical, it's an actual question) is if it happened so strongly at this level on Einstein this year, why has it not happened in the past? Wasn't last year's control/field system as a whole(minus the Kinect) the EXACT same components as this season?

True...

There was a lot more data being transmitted this year with the camera interface added this year. More data to be decoded properly. That doesn't help us in our situation at Bayou though. We went back to stock code, no camera, no CAN, and still couldn't connect.

I also know that the smart phone market has been exploding for the past few years. I actually can't name any one of my friends, and almost every smart phone has WiFi onboard. I know, at least with my iPhone, if I have the "Ask to Join Networks" switch on in the Wi-Fi menu, it will scan and ask me to join some networks. This creates network congestion, but no one notices it normally because there's not network jam, but get over 1000 people, with say 50% of them carrying around a WiFi enabled smart phone, and I would say you might run into some trouble.

I honestly have no idea... it's all speculation until FIRST comes out with an official statement. It might be a configuration problem on their part with FMS. Who knows for sure?

RyanN 29-04-2012 17:01

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by sanddrag (Post 1163996)
I am no expert in radio waves, but I can say we've experienced the same thing. We ran our robot in the school's talent show. We did a trial run with nobody there with great connectivity from probably 70 feet away. In the actual event, we had about 900 students all presumably with cellphones (on), and we were struggling with latency and packet loss even over a 30-foot distance to the robot. There has to be some correlation.

One of the things I want to know is, of all the teams that didn't work at some point on Einstein, what code language were they running?

LabVIEW

NickTosta 29-04-2012 17:11

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by sanddrag (Post 1163996)
One of the things I want to know is, of all the teams that didn't work at some point on Einstein, what code language were they running?

I'm fairly certain that 118 uses C++. I think the problem is independent of the programming language being used.

One random theory that hasn't been thrown out there yet - I wonder if all of the teams that had issues are using the CAN bus? Or maybe they are all teams that are using all 4 ports on their router? Or maybe they are all teams that are using the serial port on the cRIO?

RyanN 29-04-2012 17:17

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by NickTosta (Post 1164006)
I'm fairly certain that 118 uses C++. I think the problem is independent of the programming language being used.

One random theory that hasn't been thrown out there yet - I wonder if all of the teams that had issues are using the CAN bus? Or maybe they are all teams that are using all 4 ports on their router? Or maybe they are all teams that are using the serial port on the cRIO?

We tried with and without CAN. No difference. I'm fairly confident that this isn't a cRIO or a software issue. If it was, these teams would have also seen this issue on their pre-Einstein fields.

techhelpbb 29-04-2012 17:32

Re: Einstein 2012
 
I've asked this elsewhere but the D-Link is a dual band AP. If it's listening on 2.4GHz, even if the field is in the other band, 2.4GHz connection activity could interact with the radios.

Normally in a WiFi network a dual band radio would offer bridging of all the traffic on the switch with all the traffic authorized on both bands. The only way to stop that behavior is disable one band.

It could be that in a room with a very large number of 802.11G networks just the scanning past that other band could cause issues if the 2.4GHz radio portion is not disabled.

Also to the conversation directly above at MAR Mount Olive (I was in spare parts) one team having major communications problems was using Labview and CAN. We discussed the possibility of the issue being the CAN, but it didn't seem likely. Someone did use my oscilloscope to check their power, but in the pits not on the field. We also considered that Labview might not trap exceptions quite the way other languages do so. One should keep in mind that with so many language options it's entirely possible that Labview has one communications effecting issue and C++ has others. Some examples of communications issues effecting teams running C++ were noted elsewhere in the forums.

There are so many possible combinations of problems. Hard quantifiable evidence will be needed. Now the problem for FIRST will be that Championships are over and the effected robots might not be in the states they were at the time of the issues when and if they appear at other events. In point of fact, neither will the fields after they are taken down, moved and reassembled elsewhere.

ticoloco12 29-04-2012 17:59

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Hello all,

Now that the dust has settled, if only a tiny bit, I'll share what I saw from Einstein. You may know me as Will, I work with team 207's strategy and drive team. I am a FIRST Alumni and have been mentoring for 4 years now. let me make it clear that Team 207 is home and nothing but thankful to team 233 and 987 for an amazing time at world champs and our first trip to Einstien. Through the chaos that was the Finals, they showed that they are pure class and of the highest examples FIRST has. (341, 254,and 78 as well)

Yes, many, an unforgivable number in fact, of robots were either dead or experienced significant periods of losing coms. Some, clearly game changing. This sucked the emotion and prestige of the finals, clear out of every team on the field. Not one of the drive teams, or pit crews in our alliance cheered as we made it into the finals after semi's. It was a feeling of disbelief, that FIRST was allowing such a thing. It would have taken 30 minutes, to replay all of Einstein back to back in my mind. but that did not happen.

As a programming mentor for Pink said earlier, this is not how ANY FIRST team wanted to win or lose. I remember being on the drive team myself and dreaming of one day coming back to mentor my team there, to feel that rush, to cheer to the absolute maximum the human lungs can. To have been dead silent, and not even be able to rally our team between F1 and F2 because everyone's sentiment was, whoever works longer will win, is the largest disappointment I have ever had in my FIRST life. Even if making it there after an EPIC curie division Finals. From what I see in finals videos and scores, 341's alliance in the division finals was as competitive if not more so than any alliance on Einstein.

However, the most important feeling and experience to get away from this, is the spirit of FIRST teams. They are completely separate from fields and external chaos such as sever weather, curses, coms issues and all else. Every team on Einstein was united in their dislike of what happened, and treated each other graciously and professionally. When 987 needed time to inspect their robot and wanted to call a timeout (and I still don't know why we were denied one) 180 came to offer any assistance and tried to call theirs as well. both finalist alliances congratulated each other, on the field, and in the pits. The students were proud and even 118, and the Canadian teams did not hesitate in spreading hugs and handshakes to us all. The students themselves began making plans to replay all matches at IRI with robots in the same condition as they left the field Saturday. Dean Kamen was on the field, as was Dave and the look on their face said it all. They were disgusted and Dean was almost in tears as a Girl from a team I cannot remember pleaded the cause of her team. Dave was gone it seemed by the time the finals were over, and Woodie's face from the stage looked like he was viewing somebody drown and could not help. I insist, the truest qualities of FIRST were never seen in such bright colors and they were here. Technology failed us and perhaps the field crew have a huge catastrophe to correct. These finals will be remembered as the day the field chose the winner. BUT IN NO WAY, SHOULD THESE EVENTS TARNISH THE IMAGE OF FIRST, ITS MISSION, ITS STUDENTS, TEAMS, OR FOUNDERS.

Some of the greatest Robotics matches I have ever seen took place on Curie field in the finals. And I speak for every member of team 207 when I say we are beyond proud of all we did, and all our alliance partners did. We would put money on our alliance anyday, and if we lost a fair match, we'd cheer so loud for the alliance that beat us that our lungs would explode. Regardless of what trophies or banners the fields gave us, the embraces, laughs, comments, and connections with amazing FIRST-ers are sooooooo much more valuable. I truly hope the Einstein replay at IRI happens, not to play these matches, as much as to share them with such amazing teams and individuals, like we should have been able to.

I hope a lot changes next year, but only as far as the field goes with technology, and in organization and error management. the Human aspect of FIRST and it's competitors is something we can be prouder today of than ever.

-Will

Mulcahy 29-04-2012 18:50

Re: Einstein 2012
 
I would like to thank Dean and Woodie for the amazing experience the last few days have been. If we came in 1st or 400th, the fact that we were able to participate in such an event is truely remarkable. Woodie even delayed getting on a plane to sign a shirt for my son. Thank you for everything!

-Steve and Brendan from team 987

Thad House 29-04-2012 19:20

Re: Einstein 2012
 
I think that if FIRST can figure out a way to get the robots back to HQ with the field as well, and maybe get some of the students over to HQ they might be able to work this out better then just looking at the logs alone. I am sure that none of the robots have left St. Louis yet, and if FIRST gets in contact with the teams soon enough, they might be able to reroute the crates to HQ. I am sure most of the teams would be willing to do this, seeing as we have multiple HOF teams that show that they are all about helping FIRST.

qzrrbz 29-04-2012 19:25

Re: Einstein 2012
 
After 40 years of dealing with software problems, it is my gut feel here that we are chasing one of the worst nightmares of any troubleshooter -- a problem that is *data* dependent, *environment* dependent, and probably intermittent at best.

A terrible thing to try to reproduce, understand, and solve! Good luck to all involved! :ahh:

kylelanman 29-04-2012 20:44

Re: Einstein 2012
 
I was there and after the second match on Einstein myself and the others I was with were not watching the robots during the match. We focused our attention on the driver station lights. Particularly at approximately a minute left it was inevitable that one or two would start flashing. My team dealt with connectivity issues in WI in 2010. We made it through F1 undefeated and then F2 and F3 comms dropped right after switching to teleop. Field personal told the students "Your comms were in a tizzy" As others have said I'm really hoping that because this finally happened on Einstein that FIRST will deal with the issues.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cgmv123 (Post 1163970)
The FMS access point is a CISCO product. The Control System advisor that helped us with our one hangup said it was ~$10,000. I don't know the model number. I'm trying to find out, but I have nothing so far. It's about the size of the D-Link, but with 6 antennas sticking out the top.

Edit: the one place I thought the details would be doesn't have it. All the Field setup manual says is "Field Access Point" and "Cisco radio". It does have an image though. Still looking.

I'm going purely off the looks but the AP looks like a Cisco AIR-AP1252 with a wireless G and wireless N modules installed. We have these same access points were I work and they run about $900. My experience is they are a rock solid device.

In the little information I have found on the FMS (FTAA Training section of the FIRST site) there is also a Cisco router involved not sure of the model number there.

Multiple people have indicated that the FTA has told them to wait until the robot is on the field and there team number is displayed before powering on the robot. My guess is that each team is on there own SSID and VLAN. If the robot connects prior to the correct VLAN being configured on the fly then all the devices are not able to take part in the initial discovery phase and the ARP cache is then lacking key entries. I'm guessing/assuming the router is reconfigured in between each match automatically by the FMS. My theory is that the FMS configures the AP SSID first and then the routes on the router. If the robot connects to it's SSID but the route is not yet configured for it to speak to the driver station and possibly the FMS server then problems arise.

With all that being said I could see it taking a while for the robot to connect or for it to not connect at all. But I can not think of how the above scenario would cause it to die a minute or so into the match.

Any FTA's or FTAA's out there that care to weigh in on this?

Azores 29-04-2012 21:16

Re: Einstein 2012
 
"Dear FRC Teams:

Thank you for your incredible enthusiasm and Gracious Professionalism throughout the year and at the Championship.

We apologize for the technical problems that affected the final matches at our Championship. We will examine all of the facts, report our findings and ultimately solve any and all identified issues.

Sincerely,
Jon Dudas
President, FIRST "

Just received this, posting it here in case anyone doesn't receive it.

AlecMataloni 29-04-2012 21:28

Re: Einstein 2012
 
I couldn't even watch the matches. My eyes were glued to the alliance station lights.

My thoughts go out to all the teams affected by this mess.

hiyou102 29-04-2012 21:39

Re: Einstein 2012
 
http://redd.it/syry2
This.

techhelpbb 29-04-2012 21:51

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by hiyou102 (Post 1164175)

I would like to ask as a Mentor that while I, possibly more than a lot of people, deeply understand the concerns about what happened here.

Please, please, please think about the consequences to FIRST in the future with regards to things you write today.

FIRST is a wonderful organization that has done a lot of very good things. However, there are people that have issues with FIRST that would love to extend the single failure to troubleshoot into evidence of a pattern.

Just remember that when you remove your posts from the vacuum of ChiefDelphi you run the risk that they might stick around longer, attract more attention, and even that you might not be able to go back and close the matter when the issues do get resolved.

I am not saying that what I read at that link is disrespectful, just please realize that the bigger FIRST gets the bigger the politics around it get.

frdrake 30-04-2012 00:29

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by RyanN (Post 1164003)
LabVIEW

We ran C++ this year.

I also want to thank 987 and 207 for their tremendous effort in their part for our alliance this year. I know we couldn't triple, but we each had the right pieces to bring to the table to maximize our strategy. Thank you both for the maturity of your drive teams and enthusiasm to play.

jspatz1 30-04-2012 01:05

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by techhelpbb (Post 1164183)
FIRST is a wonderful organization that has done a lot of very good things. However, there are people that have issues with FIRST that would love to extend the single failure to troubleshoot into evidence of a pattern.

Unfortunately in this case they would be right. This was not a single failure, and was indeed a pattern all season long. The train whistles before this wreck could be heard far in the distance for those that listened. There was more than enough discussion of this issue throughout the season to make it clear that we were heading for a calamity at Champs if something did not change to fix it. As far as I am aware, there was never any official acknowledgement from FIRST that there was a problem, or instructions for teams about how they could help prevent it. As a team that was affected by this issue both before and during Champs, I feel there is at least a silver lining to what happened on Einstein: It will guarantee a fix. The complaints of individual teams throughout the regional season were not enough to bring about a solution, but the events at Champs most surely will. It was painful and disappointing to watch it happen, but there was also a little voice inside me saying "I knew this wasn't just us."

Nick Lawrence 30-04-2012 09:01

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by qzrrbz (Post 1163808)
OK, that's Newton #1 (on Einstein), #2, #3 all immobile at some point or other.

How about the other divisions?

Alliance 7 also had issues on Newton. Both 488 and 610 had comms issues in the quarter finals.

-Nick

techhelpbb 30-04-2012 09:58

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by jspatz1 (Post 1164303)
Unfortunately in this case they would be right. This was not a single failure, and was indeed a pattern all season long. The train whistles before this wreck could be heard far in the distance for those that listened. There was more than enough discussion of this issue throughout the season to make it clear that we were heading for a calamity at Champs if something did not change to fix it. As far as I am aware, there was never any official acknowledgement from FIRST that there was a problem, or instructions for teams about how they could help prevent it. As a team that was affected by this issue both before and during Champs, I feel there is at least a silver lining to what happened on Einstein: It will guarantee a fix. The complaints of individual teams throughout the regional season were not enough to bring about a solution, but the events at Champs most surely will. It was painful and disappointing to watch it happen, but there was also a little voice inside me saying "I knew this wasn't just us."

Based on what I read today in topics related to this issue. I completely agree.

Hjelstrom 30-04-2012 11:35

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by frdrake (Post 1164292)
We ran C++ this year.

I also want to thank 987 and 207 for their tremendous effort in their part for our alliance this year. I know we couldn't triple, but we each had the right pieces to bring to the table to maximize our strategy. Thank you both for the maturity of your drive teams and enthusiasm to play.

We also ran C++ this year. We definitely had comms issues (or whatever was happening to everyone) in the finals but I don't believe we did during the first series against 1114. We were blue in all of the matches so whatever was happening was not isolated to one side of the field or one language.

It was awesome being with 233 and 207 on Einstein! 233 was a really solid robot and your team had great strategy. When you told us about the drills you practiced to out score the triple balance that sealed the deal in my mind. Thanks for picking us, 3 long robots almost went all the way!

S.P.A.M.er 17 30-04-2012 19:26

Re: Einstein 2012
 
My thoughts about Einstein.

MooreteP 30-04-2012 19:38

Re: Einstein 2012
 
I believe that this will be remembered as a watershed year for FIRST

There are things that will change after this year.
There are many intelligent people cogitating on the season.
We will engineer a better solution.

This was a great game this year. The winning alliance were teams with 15, 16, and 17 years in FIRST.
The universe conspired and after all is said and one, the result was inspiring.

Libby K 30-04-2012 20:15

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by ticoloco12 (Post 1164029)
However, the most important feeling and experience to get away from this, is the spirit of FIRST teams. They are completely separate from fields and external chaos such as sever weather, curses, coms issues and all else. Every team on Einstein was united in their dislike of what happened, and treated each other graciously and professionally.

That's why I'm so proud to be a part of FIRST. I'd like to thank all the Einstein teams for being as incredible as they were this weekend.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ticoloco12 (Post 1164029)
Dean Kamen was on the field, as was Dave and the look on their face said it all. They were disgusted and Dean was almost in tears as a Girl from a team I cannot remember pleaded the cause of her team. Dave was gone it seemed by the time the finals were over, and Woodie's face from the stage looked like he was viewing somebody drown and could not help.

That's exactly how I felt as well.... like I was watching a catastrophe and couldn't do anything about it. Because that's exactly what it was for me. FIRST is something I love and believe in with all of my heart and soul, and that was impossible to watch. I still don't feel any better about it.

I know a lot of people there with me felt that way, and I am sure that FIRST will make sure that something like this never happens again.

As I've said a few times on other threads: I have absolutely no bearing on what happened, but I am truly sorry it did.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ticoloco12 (Post 1164029)
I insist, the truest qualities of FIRST were never seen in such bright colors and they were here. Technology failed us and perhaps the field crew have a huge catastrophe to correct. These finals will be remembered as the day the field chose the winner. BUT IN NO WAY, SHOULD THESE EVENTS TARNISH THE IMAGE OF FIRST, ITS MISSION, ITS STUDENTS, TEAMS, OR FOUNDERS.

I hope a lot changes next year, but only as far as the field goes with technology, and in organization and error management. the Human aspect of FIRST and it's competitors is something we can be prouder today of than ever.

You make really good points. I appreciate your support for not tarnishing the image of FIRST... As awful as Einstein was, I am confident that FIRST will use this as a learning experience and a place from which to make changes. They'll make things right. As JVN said in another thread, we just have to wait and trust that the 'powers that be' will make this right. As FIRST teams deserve.

Kearse 02-05-2012 00:20

Re: Einstein 2012
 
As others have said, the teams down on the field came together during the complications that were presented by Einstein. One moment in particular struck a chord with me…

After the competition was over and medals had been awarded to the Finalist alliance, a couple team members from 233 approached myself and another member of 2056 and attempted to give us their medals. These two students were crying as they tried to explain that they wanted to give us their medals. They stated that they felt they didn’t deserve to have the medals any more than we did and that it wasn’t fair for them to have them. It literally broke my heart to see these two in such shape. I myself was having a hard time keeping a level head in a moment where I was still trying to comprehend how the Finals had been allowed to continue.

To those two students on Pink, thank you for your generosity. What you did that day will stick with me longer than any Championship win ever could.

Nawaid Ladak 03-05-2012 19:04

Re: Einstein 2012
 
I figure i'd throw my hat into the ring and have added my thoughts here

stundt1 03-05-2012 19:11

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Kearse (Post 1165617)
After the competition was over and medals had been awarded to the Finalist alliance, a couple team members from 233 approached myself and another member of 2056 and attempted to give us their medals. These two students were crying as they tried to explain that they wanted to give us their medals. They stated that they felt they didn’t deserve to have the medals any more than we did and that it wasn’t fair for them to have them. It literally broke my heart to see these two in such shape.

Wow this is what makes First. Inspiring

hiyou102 03-05-2012 21:06

Re: Einstein 2012
 
I have a recording I made of Einstein final 2 up here.

CalTran 03-05-2012 21:10

Re: Einstein 2012
 
I didn't notice this then, but I found it kind of funny how it turned into a 207vs16 battle for the barrier. Seemed like every ball Bomb Squad put over the barrier, 207 promptly shot right back over.

JB987 03-05-2012 21:45

Re: Einstein 2012
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by CalTran (Post 1166726)
I didn't notice this then, but I found it kind of funny how it turned into a 207vs16 battle for the barrier. Seemed like every ball Bomb Squad put over the barrier, 207 promptly shot right back over.

Right...207 was definitely keeping up with 16 in that match and did very much the same in all of our previous matches together. Definitely under-recognized by others but highly appreciated by us!


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