Chief Delphi - Competing in a Regional Soon ?

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Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out

The lip idea that you mentioned, could be applied to this, a box with no lid sort of thing could be made on the driver station, into which the laptop could simply sit( with holes for USB, charging etc.)

Another alternative non-adhesive method, would be to use a piece of cordage, which would go around the hinges( the things with join the screen and the non-important bit with the keyboard:) ). Two brackets could be used which fit over the front corners of the laptop( but this is really dangerous, because if you close your screen it might crack)

Also this sort of breaks the non-adhesive rule, but you could attach little squares of the double sided tape included in the KOP to each of the little rubber feet on your laptop( if it has them) and then mount it the the console that way( that stuff is strong)

You guys have probably already crated and sent your Robot for the Australia Regional, so you'd have to make something which you could take with you on the plane

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out

Quote:

Originally Posted by pilleya (Post 1551583)

You guys have probably already crated and sent your Robot for the Australia Regional, so you'd have to make something which you could take with you on the plane

Yea, crates are somewhere in the outback currently. I'll see if I can hack something up during the practice day, as we can't carry much more on the plane. Either way, see you guys in about 1.5 weeks, everyone over here is on the edge of their seats waiting for competition :D

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out

Quote:

Originally Posted by orangemoore (Post 1551496)

If you are going to take this stance I have a question,

How do you plan to prevent your laptop from blue screening assuming your driver station is attached with velcro?

Right now, we haven't taken miuch effort to prevent this, but I'm confident in our driver station holding up.

As well, a robot crashing your laptop could occur in Tele-Op too. Consider: RobotA is a red alliance robot and is currently in the blue alliance's courtyard. RobotA shoots a high goal and misses, and the boulder bounces in front of blue alliance's castle wall. In order to retreive the boulder, RobotA pushes the boulder into the castle wall, colliding with the wall itself. This crashes a robot on the blue alliance. Should the RobotA be penalized because it was trying to retrieve a boulder? The wording regarding a potential rule about laptops crashing would have to be worded very carefully and consider both accidental and intentional occurances, however noticing the difference between the two may be difficult.

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaci (Post 1551587)

We'll happily help you in that regard, PM me the size requirements and we should be able to make something to give to you at the event.

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky (Post 1551468)

Get some velcro. Enuff said.

Yeah... that broke ours. That stuff is strong.

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ginger Power (Post 1551469)

We knocked a laptop off today. We apologized and made sure the teams laptop was ok. However, no penalty should be leveled against the team that knocks the laptop off, because the laptop won't fall off if you use the velcro. Simple solution: use the velcro. I think teams are also allowed to catch their laptop if it falls off (or if they're not, they should be).

I believe you can. I do not know the rule exactly but there is a clause in the rule that says the drivers can not cross the line during auto, with exception of equipment I believe. Someone else may know the rule exactly.

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out

It's G15. You can jump the line in the event of "personal or equipment safety" being in danger.

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out

Quote:

Originally Posted by de_ (Post 1551460)

Make sure you have read and understood team update 14.

Today our robot was dead during part or all of 6 out of 8 matches even though it was completely mechanically functional. Twice it was caused by opponent teams robot smashing into the our wall in autonomous causing our laptop to blue screen and reboot and the second time crash on the floor and even after a reboot of the laptop, the robot autostart failed. Another team I am told had one or both of a laptop and tablet destroyed in a similar situation today. No penalty or consequences what so ever to the robots that caused it.

I think FIRST needs to immediately implement one or more of the following:

1) If a robot in autonomous crashes so out of control hard into the wall causing a driver station of the teams behind wall are immediately effected (ie their robot goes dead. a) the offending team should get no score for the match and or b) better still the match is immediately restarted.

2) Teams should be allowed to hold their laptop during autonomous so as to protect them.

All laptops are expensive fragile electronics. Velcroing them so they can be smashed about without consequence is ridiculous.

Dave Edwards
Mentor - Runnymede Robotics
Team 1310

Update: Apparently the mentor provided laptop requires replacing. It was his personal very high end business laptop and it was used because 1) we have a rich smart dashboard environment and 2) our $1500 Dell I7 Windows 10 team laptop would not reliably connect to the field.

Clearly FIRST NEEDS to provide an updated more protection environment next year. This problem is not going to go away. For this year, they need to do everything possible to allow the drivers to protect this very expensive very fragile, very low G force rated piece of essential equipment from robots. As a professional engineer, velcroing a spinning hard drive with microscope clearances and a fragile lcd screen on plastic hinges to a high G force impact table is not a solution, its an expensive failure waiting to happen. I don't know what fund raising environments other teams are in but in our environment, raising funds for $10s of dollars is incredibly tough, never mind $2500 for laptop replacements.

All teams I highly recommend you follow every single recommendation in Team update 14. Do bring a BRAND NEW network cable for between your bridge and roborio and replace the existing one with the first sign of trouble.
Do review your Drive Station log after every match and practice. Bring a can of compressed air to blow out any fillings, cover up every unused port on your roborio. And train your drivers to be smart and minimize the impacts to your robot when at all possible. Foot high jumps over the Rock Wall or Cheval looks cool but could cost you matches. Lastly be prepared to protect your laptop and hopefully have a backup.

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out

Quote:

Originally Posted by de_ (Post 1552177)

My homeowner's insurance would cover that damage. Check into if that's a viable option for the mentor who's laptop is damaged.

Robots slamming into the drivers station wall has been a problem every single year I've been working matches. I'm sorry for your loss, but it isn't an unpredictable outcome given the dynamics of the games played.

Potential damage from robots is not limited to the field. Arial Assault's exercise balls were pretty damaging to me personally. I had a Microsoft Surface smashed and broken as well as a ThinkPad (luckily it was a ThinkPad and the floor was only concrete) knocked off the scorekeeper table by teams shooting them off the field.