Originally Posted by Louis_ (Post 1476516)

People actually cheered when those stacks fell over? That's just terrible, I'm so sorry. You guys are an amazing team and constantly inspire me, I hope that doesn't bring you guys down too much.

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad (Post 1479503)

That was the nature of this year's game and the result of having lack of defense. Basing advancement entirely on cumulative performance instead of win/loss further exacerbated this.

Originally Posted by KevinRo (Post 1478697)

I am happy there is so much interest in this subject. I believe that a great stream adds immense value to our events, which is why we (PNW) put together a strong video system and team. It allows others to be avid fans. It allows for schools across the region to show large numbers of students the dream of FIRST: To give recognition to science and technology.

The issue for FIRST is that video production is not in their core competencies. Shouldn't be either, they have enough to do. When they outsource the video production to others, the costs are surprising. It was cheaper for me to purchase all of the equipment for the PNW streaming setup than it was to hire a professional crew for a single event. Since we do 11 FRC events a year, the value proposition is quite reasonable. It cost us less than $1500 per event the first year. Subsequent years have about a 10% replacement / repair rate. So we spend about $3,000 a year (we have two full systems) in replacement cables and other enhancements.

To make this successful, a new cache of volunteer knowledge is required. The PNW took this on a couple of years ago knowing that a few dedicated individuals and a handful of students could put together a high class broadcast.

Our equipment is very reasonable quality, simple to use, and is good for 4 to 5 years. We have finished our second year. Each setup cost about $16,000 to put together. I shopped explicitly for equipment that would be suitable to be run by students, yet meets the standards for broadcast quality. As such, we end up with about 8 volunteers a week. Three of them need some level of training, and one technical director to help with the details needs a substantial (yet very doable) amount of training.

I am open to sharing everything we know with the greater FIRST community. FIRST is actively looking into how to improve the stream quality at all FRC events. Sometimes doing it with knowledgeable volunteers is a better approach. Keep in mind, most of the staff at an FRC event are volunteers. Integrating the volunteers in with the A/V company (Three Rivers, Sargent, or other local guys) isn't really a problem. It requires a set of volunteers to step forward and own it. Each show requires at least one adult to take ownership and to lead a group of other volunteers (adults and students)

Are you that person?

Kevin Ross
PNW District Chairman

Originally Posted by JimInNJ (Post 1479700)

I couldn't agree more that FIRST streaming has been spotty at best. I'm curious about where you get a clean outbound path at all of these different venues? Do you contract with a local carrier for temporary bandwidth, or do all of your venues have sufficient bandwidth available to provision your outbound stream in addition to all of the normal traffic?

Professional curiosity requires me to ask about your hardware setup. Do you stream HD or standard Def? How many cameras, lockoff, tripod or handheld? Do you take the interface from the scoring system? How big does your car/truck need to be to haul all of this gear around? What switch/SEG? Do you carry lighting as well? Sorry for all the questions, I'm preparing for a local group request that goes " Hey, you do video stuff at work, what can you do for us???"

Originally Posted by Mr V (Post 1479714)

Kevin may not make it back for awhile so I'll answer the questions that I can.

The stream is HD.
I believe we have 3 Cameras though sometimes some of the students supplement that with their own gear. Typically 2 are on tripods and one is available for handheld use.

Yes they connect to the FMS to get the score overlays.

We haul it around in a 53' trailer, but the bulk of the video equipment is in a road case aprox 2'w x 6'l x 5'h, there is a second one of the same size that is for the Audio equipment. Projectors fit in another case that has space and the screens ride on top of the Video and Audio cases. We also have a 2'w x 8'l x 3'h road case that holds the tripods for the speakers and projectors. I know that the IN district has a similar set up and I believe they haul it around in cars since the AndyMark truck that is used to haul the fields does not have room to add another road case.

No additional lighting is used.

Kevin does have a list with all of the equipment that is used which he is supposed to dig up and forward to me for the areas that are joining, or thinking about joining, the district system for the 2016 or 2017 season. When I get that I can post it.

Originally Posted by JimInNJ (Post 1479735)

Thanks Eric, I appreciate the fast response. I'm guessing that your equipment rides in the truck with the field? I'm looking forward to seeing the equipment list and/or pictures of the setup. I'm still curious about the Internet access that you use to get out of the venues, as I would think that would be the biggest variable . . .

Originally Posted by cmrnpizzo14 (Post 1476624)

It's the highest rookie seed award, not the highest rookie score. In previous years it was the exact same way with W/L (actually was worse in previous years since W/L could be more easily luck based).

Originally Posted by JimInNJ (Post 1479735)

Thanks Eric, I appreciate the fast response. I'm guessing that your equipment rides in the truck with the field? I'm looking forward to seeing the equipment list and/or pictures of the setup. I'm still curious about the Internet access that you use to get out of the venues, as I would think that would be the biggest variable . . .

Originally Posted by matan129 (Post 1476250)

I don't quite agree with you. Although I think autonomous shouldn't fully determine the winner of the match - it is no fun knowing who'd win after 15 seconds - I must say the programming in FRC is in general almost trivial.

<snip>

So, to wrap up - yes, it may be better to let the auto be a little less crucial but programming must be kicked up a notch.

Originally Posted by jtrv (Post 1481643)

When kids aren't taught Calculus until junior (2 years ahead of schedule) or senior year (1 year ahead), it's kinda difficult to introduce advanced control systems in addition to learning the ins and outs of coding a robot. Coding a robot is far different than your standard software programming, which is what we are taught in our CS classes offered here.

Originally Posted by Monochron (Post 1481649)

Even so, using the PID classes in WPI lib is relatively simple and made much more so by the plethora of tutorials found online. It is a much better approach to understand the control systems math going on in the library implementation, but that is wholly unnecessary to create a function PID loop.

In college you can likely expect to have to create the internals of the PID classes used in WPIlib (by which I mean programatically [or in some form of hardware] creating the feedback loop and designing the plant) necessitating full understanding of the system. WPILib makes it so that all you have to do for a basic loop is to just tweak k, i, and d values.