Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

Taken right from the blog post,

Looking for a little holiday something from FIRST? Some FIRST STEAMWORKSTM content, maybe a hint or two? Look no further. Lovingly wrapped and delivered!

the button picture may be that hint and the only one we get from this post

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

Don't forget the "3, 2, 1, Liftoff" ringtone in the DLC pack. If you ask me that's definitely another hint (and more likely to be the one that the text is referencing, given that it's talking about the DLC pack).

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

I saw that thread just after I posted, That is definitely the second hint he is speaking about.

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

I love this kind of speculation, but since I have so little to complain about now that I'm on vacation, I have a bone to pick with this thread.

Particularly with the title.

The lack of a question mark led me to believe there was some sort of definitive credible source stating that there would be a five person drive team. After reading the source material I discovered that this was merely speculation. I know this is SUPER nit picky, but can we write our titles to be a bit more representative of the content of the thread, as in a thread where the topic is "will there be an additional drive team member on the field" would have the title "Five Person Drive team in 2017?"

I know this is a serious FIRST world problem but I really have nothing better to do, so ignore this if It's as trivial of an issue as the rational half of my brain tells me it is.

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

Noticed that just after I posted the thread, but as far as I know I can't fix it so it is stuck that way.

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017?
 

There is a way to edit titles. It isn't retroactive to later posts, but it'll work if you're quick enough (and others haven't posted). (See the title of this post...)

Click on "Edit", and then click "Go Advanced". That'll bring up a window that looks just like the normal new post window (with a couple of other options, like deleting a post). Edit the title there, save it, and the thread title is changed.

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

Field communication errors are almost exclusively the fault of the effected team at this point. There is no reason why the field couldn't theoretically run an additional 6 lines of communication with the current hardware, especially if those lines are not transmitting video data. Additionally, who's to say the field networking hardware couldn't be updated to more reliably support 6 additional robots.

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

I don't believe that is true, there are many times it is something with the team( not updating firmware and such), but as a scorekeeper I have seen what we called a "Christmas tree", where everyone starts to have issues randomly through matches. This issue was resolved by the next day for that regional, but there are still random issues that persist sometimes.

This is not to say that the system would be unable to handle 6 additional feeds, that is totally doable. Another way of doing this would be to bring back the non-human player of 2008 where they could control their robot through the IR sensor. Would be another way of accomplishing that goal.

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

Too late....

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

Yeah, the "Christmas Tree" is primarily why FIRST has updated the radio. The old D-Link radios failed to implement proper WiFi protocols, nor could they enforce bandwidth caps. Basically, WiFi protocol says that when packets are being dropped, the rate at which those packets are sent must be reduced, and the rate at which they are backed off must be random. The issue with the D-Link was that the rate at which they backed off was hard-coded as a set number. Therefore when the network got crowded and packets were dropped, all the radios on the field backed off and then tried to re-send packets at the same time. If you can imagine, that is exactly why the rate should be random, and thats why we saw the "Christmas Tree". Among other things, one of the major improvements with our new radio is that it does in fact back off at a random rate, following proper WiFi protocol. That said, the "Christmas Tree" is not impossible with the new radios, but it would be a very surprising. I personally don't know of a single occurrence it last year, and adding six feeds really shouldn't have much effect on the likely hood of a "Christmas Tree" type of occurrence.

Had we not updated radios, I would totally agree with you. Six additional feeds with the D-Link would absolutely increase the occurrence of the "Christmas Tree" among other things.

If anyone has more questions about what the "Christmas Tree" is(symptoms, causes, fixes) or if you'd like to hear why the recent changes are fixing this issue, feel free to PM me or quote/reply. I'd be happy to answer your questions!

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

Crazy(ish) idea, someone already mentioned the extra button being for someone to control some sort of train minibot, if this is the case the train could be controlled directly through the rails and additional functions on board the train could also be controlled if they used a dcc (digital command control) system. Teams could build their own "train" with a specific on-board controller which is programmed to respond to their team number and the additional team member could operate that from a dedicated station, not necessarily directly behind the glass, similar placement to the kinect stations. Many teams probably wouldn't build one of these trains and therefore I think it would almost have to be something like 1 train per alliance and the whole alliance gets the points it scores with regard to ranking. I have not really thought through the scoring and all that and the logistics (events need lots of track cleaner on hand) but I like trains and this is just one way that I think would be really cool to include them into an FRC game. This gives a truly teleoperated minibot without taking up more bandwidth, and dcc systems are incredibly reliable in connecting, as long as the tracks are clean. Also, the trains could pull their power from the rails so they would not need additional batteries on board and at the end of the match the fms could simply cut power to them. As far as the extra people, if only one of these is used per alliance, possibly each team gets an additional button, but to use it they must have their train in hand as they enter the field.

Just another thoroughly crazy idea, but hey, it sounds fun, at least on paper.

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

In an effort to control access to the field FIRST stopped giving teams their own media buttons and had six media buttons to be rotated amongst teams during the event. I suspect they will continue this practice.

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

At every event I've been to with media passes, (including Worlds) they've given one out to each team, but it was never in the form of a button.

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

Haven't gotten a media badge in three years or so. Everybody still gets one at worlds, but they only let you out on the field when your team is up now. This is probably better than the old system of "everybody who's cool gets a floor badge".

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

Teams still abuse it and sneak in and then I gottta go play bad cop....