Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

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

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

Were you using the hook/loop on the station?
I recall some serious impacts in the past that didn't knock laptops over. Perhaps a foul for manhandling the field?

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

Teams should know that the driver's station will be slammed, hard. Sorry to be blunter than a dull chisel, but since it was in a team update, this was more or less to be expected.

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

Get some velcro. Enuff said.

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

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).

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

Yea. We have velcro on our driver station now thankfully.. saw a couple driverstations fall down after robots just slammed into the wall.. pretty scary stuff for the driverstation laptop. :ahh:

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

The velcro is exceptionally good.

You really want to punish the entire team for the thing one robot did? You really want to restart the entire match, despite how long and frustrating that would be?

Also, a rule would never be allowed that would let drivers hold their laptop. Way too much potential cheating involved in this.

I believe you're completely over-exaggerating the punishment and this scenario in general. StongHold is a very rough game, so it is your duty as a team to be prepared for it in all manners, not just preparing the robot.

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

They are:

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

What's wrong with G14? You can grab your laptop if someone is about to slam into the wall.

During AUTO, DRIVE TEAMS may not directly or indirectly interact with ROBOTS or OPERATOR CONSOLES unless for personal safety, OPERATOR CONSOLE safety, or pressing an E-Stop for ROBOT safety.

David

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

How fair is it to have your robot not compete because someone's autonomous is intentionally(or not) written to run into the wall. It isn't fair to the team who can't play. Despite that team's best effort someone else's actions are what prevent them from playing.

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

I mean, it's unfortunate, but you're also allowed to catch it if it's imminently falling.

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

I think this is a different situation if robots are running into walls so hard that the driver stations are BSoDing immediately without falling off. Velcro isn't going to prevent damage from blunt trauma to a hard drive.

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

It's really not fair to have your robot not compete because of this. I agree it is a huge issue for a lot of teams, but I don't believe punishing the team that did it in this scenario is the right response. I believe that it should be expected that this can occur, and teams should be prepared for this. Teams have to prepare for the game in all aspects. Having your driver station crash by being hit by the force caused by a robot prevents you from playing; having your robot break by bring hit by the force caused by another robot prevents you from playing. With the chance of a driver station crashing, causing the same effect as a robot breaking, shouldn't teams prepare for a robot hitting their castle wall as well as hitting their own robot?

Basically, I agree with this:

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

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?


Currently the sentiment from FIRST would indicate to me that if I wrote an autonomous that ran our robot in the alliance wall on purpose there isn't much they would do to stop this.

FIRST has so far seems to have ignored the intent of someone hitting the wall. I'm sure if we blatantly hit the wall in an attempt to disable our opponents people wouldn't be very happy with us.

I'd like to see a change so that all teams shouldn't have to worry about this situation. As said in another thread
Most instances seem to be people not writing a proper autonomous code and ignoring the consequences by hiding behind the team update.

I want to see a better option than the current one.

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

I'll ditto the call for some intervention here. Velcro will keep a laptop from getting thrown to the ground, but it's entirely possible for a robot to hit the DS wall hard enough that it's equivalent to dropping the laptop on the ground. It seems like G24 (no strategies aimed at damage/disablement) should apply to repeat offenders. If your robot is slamming into the DS wall every match, it should be assumed your strategy is to disable your opponents' robots by damaging or dislodging their operator consoles.

If your laptop is properly secured there is a higher probability that the opposing robot will break itself then your laptop although it's definitely possible.

Id recommend everyone changing out hard drives in their laptops to ssds. You can get a 60gb model for under $50 and will most likely prevent your laptop from bsoding after impact.

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

"Our robot catches on fire a lot, and will probably catch other robots on fire as well. We suggest other teams at the event invest in ABC fire extinguishers for their drive teams, just in case you face us...."

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

Right conclusion. Wrong reasoning. :D

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

That sounds like what happened to us two years ago. We had just won a final that would have allowed us to go on to the state-level competition, but it was decided that the match had to be replayed because one of our opponents had gotten a no robot code flag in the DS after teleop started (though their auton functioned normally.) After this, they were allowed to re-upload code, which isn't right imo. When we re-did the match, their robot backed up then drove into our driver station at full power, knocking our Velcroed DS off. Though it was caught by our driver, we disconnected from our robot and lost about 20 seconds getting everything back together, followed by unexplainable periodic disconnecting from our robot for the rest of the match. We lost by a small margin. Needless to say, everyone on our team was furious for various reasons, especially since we checked the logs in our DS and found issues communicating with the FMS server to have caused the disconnecting issue. While I agree that you should expect the DS to come under a certain amount of battering, I feel like something like the events described in auton should at least merit a restart of the match if the DS had been velcored. Since you're only 20 seconds in, there wouldn't be a huge loss of time either.

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

I disagree. In past years match cycle times were around 7 minutes on average. (longer this year from what I've heard). Most matches have less than 45 seconds of MC introductions. Therefore, most of the time is spent on moving robots into starting positions, letting them boot up, and resetting the field. When a match gets replayed, even immediatly after a field fault, all of that needs to happen all over again (robots need rebooted, at least it used to be that way, I'm not an FTA) The point is that replays cost events a decent chunk of time, and how far the match had progressed is more or less irrelevant.

The general rule has been that if the issue was on the field's end (or due to a volunteer's error), you are offered a replay due to field fault. If the issue was on your end, no replay. The latter includes issues due to an opposing robot, in which case they get penalized (and carded if warranted), no replay.

So, unless the driver's station shelf collapsed or the velcro ripped free from the shelf, you probably won't get a replay from getting your station slammed in autonomous.

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

In 2009 our autonomous strategy was to bang into the wall...

..to be fair, there was not really a good autonomous strategy that year.

At the New Jersey Regional we hit the wall (and the new and very fragile and constantly faulting control system) multiple times throughout the event. Eventually someone (might have been us) hit the wall hard enough during an elims match that it knocked out the entire alliance wall power for our opponents. They deservedly earned a replay because a robot caused a field fault and that alliance went on to win the regional (it was the first regional win ever for all three teams and I specifically remember one team's crazy drive coach totally freaking out over it! She's still on that team (: ).

Long story short, I think that in the past robots ramming the opposing alliance station..err..."CASTLE WALL"...has resulted in those robots being penalized and I think that if you have an autonomous mode that is putting the integrity of human bodies and valuable and irreplacable electronics in danger you should be flagged down for it. Sure, you should watch your Operator Console and slap some velcro on the other side, but that's not supposed to enable teams to be overtly reckless for 15 seconds of autonomous control when the recklessness is heavily regulated for the rest of the match.

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

Securing a fragile thing is ridiculous? I find it logical, if anything. If you're still having issues after properly securing your laptop, it's likely your machine is just old or beaten up. Get a business laptop, most have built in accelerometers that put everything into a safe mode when the laptop is falling or experiences a heavy impact. We've run the 2016 DS on an 8 year old laptop with an SSD, and it handles it like a champ. You're not going to get every team in the world to be able to write a decent auto, no matter how hard you try someone is going to go full speed into the wall. Be prepared for the inevitable.

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

The advice to secure the driver station is good, and echoes the team update information from FIRST. It means more, however, coming from a team that has experienced the unfortunate consequences, perhaps.

I feel the frustration in having robot malfunctions... been there, done that, not fun.

I note that you were able to link two of the six malfunctions to wall impact, did you figure out what caused the other four?

It would be interesting to see if other teams are experiencing similar problems with their computer hardware... perhaps some laptops are more resistant to impact than others. It may also make sense to design driver stations to provide cushioning for the laptop as well as velcro for securing it. I don't think, however, that FIRST is likely to create a rule preventing wall impacts in auto considering that they have already specifically advised teams to be prepared for heavy wall impacts.

Thank you for warning teams, and I hope you are able to solve the impact issue and figure out whatever problem was causing the majority of your breakdowns. Good luck on Saturday!

Jason

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

It seems like a simple fix to this would be to just put a 'lip' on the driver station's bench, so that if it does get hit, the laptop stops at the lip instead of falling off completely.

Velcro is good, yes, but there's not a chance in hell I'm sticking a big piece of velcro to the bottom of my laptop...

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

If I may ask, why is that? It seems perfectly reasonable as a form of protection for your laptop, and it can be removed after the fact with any remaining residue cleaned up with a little bit of rubbing alcohol (while the computer is powered down, of course).

It seems odd to me that you would have such reservations about protecting what appears to be a personal investment of yours in the form of a laptop you own yourself (rather than a laptop owned by the team).

What my team likes to do is use velcro to secure our laptop to a polycarbonate plate, which is then bolted onto our driver's station, which holds two joysticks and the laptop and has much heavier duty velcro underneath to secure it to the operator's console.

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

It would need to be substantial lip for this to be effective. A 150 pound robot potentially travelling 15+fps can transfer a lot of energy when it impacts something.

Most teams opt to use a driver console, to which the laptop+joysticks etc. are attached, this then has the velcro on the bottom of it. If a driver console was used, you could use another method to attach the laptop to it which would be less likely to leave a sticky residue if this is what your concerned about, or change out the nice laptop for one you don't care about as much.

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

I find it strange that no one has mentioned the obvious engineering oversight here:

Why is the table that holds expensive electronics connected rigidly to something that will take massive impacts? I feel you could easily design the field so that the driver stations are independent of the wall.

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

To reply to both pilleya and Pretzel:

Due to funding constraints (everything purchased has to go through multiple channels of approval), we've opted to use my personal laptop as the Driver Station console. Our only other option is the Classmates provided in the KOP of our Rookie year, and on our DS console, I'd like more than 2 pixels on the screen to work with. If at all possible, I'd prefer to avoid attaching velcro to my personal computer, but I guess that's just me being anal.

Custom driver station consoles are a solution, yes, but for many teams, they are time crunched enough just getting the robot finished before competition, let alone extra parts like a driver station console.

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

An operator console, can be as simple as a piece of plywood, 1 foot wide and 3 feet long it can be purple to go with your teams colours. An operator console can be re-used season after season, and does not have to be built during build. Once you have this, there are ways of attaching the laptop which do not require adhesives.

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

Any suggestions for attachment? We don't have access to workshops currently, but if we can find a way to transport it, we may be able to come up with something

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
 

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
 

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
 

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
 

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

Re: Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out
 

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
 

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
 

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.