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Mark McLeod 18-07-2008 16:03

**FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Greetings Teams:

With the launch of our new FRC Control System just around the corner, we are seeking a limited number of teams interested in beta testing the new control system.

FIRST BETA TEST PROGRAM GOALS


* Give as many teams as possible early hands-on exposure to the 2009 control system;
* Use beta team feedback to refine/develop supporting documentation and training materials;
* Test the features and functions of the new control system to uncover problems and provide solution suggestions;
* Develop a supporting network/knowledge database to ease the transition to the new system;
* Allow teams to become “Control System Experts” and serve as area leaders to mentor other teams;
* Share information to minimize strategic advantages; and
* Understand the difficulties and issues that teams may encounter with the new control system.

In order to be eligible for the FIRST beta testing program, FRC teams must exhibit attributes consistent with a Chairman’s Award winning team and have participated in FIRST programs for at least three recent years. Teams will be selected based on their location and their FIRST experiences. The specific beta testing criteria for the FRC teams is outlined below:

TEAM SELECTION CRITERIA


* COMMUNITY

o Teams who have consistently demonstrated involvement within their FIRST community will best fit this beta program. A team’s communication network should be in place and will be utilized in this project.


* VISION

o Teams who have proven they ‘get’ the bigger picture and vision of FIRST and who want to work together for the betterment of the FRC program are preferred.


* GEOGRAPHICAL AREAS

o Team location is key to the beta test. FIRST will distribute the control systems geographically in an effort to gather more diverse feedback and also to create “Control System Experts” in as many locations as possible for future mentoring.

REQUIRED BETA TEST TASKS
Beta test teams must perform the following tasks:


* Submit and execute a test schedule and plan;
* Transplant the new control system into an existing FRC competition robot with the understanding that they will not take this opportunity to test new mechanisms;
* Designate one lead student and one technical mentor to serve as the communicators of test results;
* Post their findings on the FIRST Forums on a bi-weekly basis;
* Be available to answer questions from teams in their region, and from the broader FRC community;
* Release every piece of code developed;
* Open their facility to regional teams to observe or assist in the test program;
* Agree to serve as “Control Systems Experts” and provide support to teams in their surrounding areas for the 2009 season;
* Hold at least one Saturday controls training seminar open to all neighboring teams prior to the 2009 kickoff. This schedule is to be posted on the FIRST Forums; and
* Agree to return this 2009 Control System to FIRST upon request.


FIRST is asking interested, eligible FRC teams to submit a written proposal via this application form <http://www.usfirst.org/forms.aspx?ekfrm=9446> by August 15th, 2008 on why they would be a good candidate, how they intend to collaborate and work with their neighboring teams, and what they intend to do if they receive the new control system.

Teams are asked to identify the specific robotic features that will be integrated as part of the team's beta testing efforts. By being specific, teams will increase their chances for being selected. For example, teams might consider including one or more of the following robotic features in their proposed development plan:


* Image-based control to track the position of a target such as the 2006 Aim High cold cathode light;
* Closed loop PI control of a rotating robotic arm using a potentiometer;
* Control of the end of travel of a mechanical component through the use of limit switches, light sensors, and/or potentiometers;
* Navigation using wheel encoders and a gyro;
* Implementation of a blown circuit breaker detection algorithm;
* Implementation of a transmission shifting algorithm; and/or
* Implementation of an autonomous routine.


Applications for beta test teams will be reviewed by a panel of Championship Woodie Flowers Award Winners.

Selected teams will be notified by September 1st, 2008 and control systems will be shipped starting September 15th, 2008 after FIRST receives the test schedule and plan from the beta tester. Please direct questions regarding submissions to FRCbetatest@usfirst.org.

While FIRST would like to provide every team with a control system for evaluation in the beta test, FIRST must limit the scope of this test program due to the number of control systems available at this early date.

Our beta test team selection criteria, out of necessity, narrows the list of potential participants but is not intended to favor or disfavor any specific teams. One goal of the beta test program is to strengthen local communication and support networks, so FIRST will select the teams that will do the best job of disseminating the knowledge accumulated through testing.

As noted above, the intent of this program is to test and improve the 2009 FRC Control System, give as many teams as possible early hands-on exposure, and reduce the learning curve for teams. This approach to beta testing is not perfect, but it brings us closer to the goal of creating the best control system possible for the 2009 season and beyond. Thank you all for your support in helping successfully launch FIRST’s new control system!

Go Teams!

Leav 19-07-2008 17:17

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Hi guys,
My team is very interested in helping out, so I tried to register...

but all I get is a blank page... could this be due to my ubuntu+firefox combination?

anyone else getting a blank page at:
http://www.usfirst.org/forms.aspx?ekfrm=9446

I'm getting the same blank page when I randomly enter numbers instead of 9446 so i'm guessing it's either a typo or the page isn't up yet...

either way... anyone get any further with this than a blank page?

Thanks!

-Leav

p.s.
just emailed them about it...

R.C. 19-07-2008 17:23

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Dude, I'm getting a blank page also???

Brandon Holley 19-07-2008 20:15

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
ditto on the blank page

Mark McLeod 19-07-2008 21:11

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
1 Attachment(s)
That's the link and it was up and working when the email originally arrived.
Maybe 1500 applications brought it down...

basicxman 19-07-2008 21:37

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
wow thanks FIRST for that FTC beta application :rolleyes:
wish i had an FRC team to test this with :D

Leav 20-07-2008 12:48

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
so what, we don't get to submit an application? the kids gave it a good hard day's work.... :(

-Leav

Mark McLeod 20-07-2008 13:10

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
I'm sure the FIRST web crew will fix it after they get back from their weekend off.

Leav 20-07-2008 17:38

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
oops! forgot Sunday isn't a workday in the states :p sorry!

Micah Siegel 22-07-2008 10:56

Call to all Teams: Participate in the Beta Test of the New Control System
 
Some of you maybe have seen the email about the beta test program for the 2009 FRC control system. If not, you can find the text here. In summary, FIRST is looking for a few good teams to start using the control system; incorporating such maneuvers as image-based control, navigation using wheel encoders and a gyro, and implementation of a transmission shifting algorithm.
But, in my mind the most important part of this program is the following: The teams that participate will be given a challenge, which is to teach and demonstrate the control system to EVERY other team that wants to learn. Here’s where many of you come in. You might not be applying to the beta test, but you should not let the opportunity go by without getting everything you can out of it. This means:

1. Create and maintain relationships with one or more of the beta test teams once they are announced.
2. Follow the progress of this team, read their bi-weekly posts on the FIRST forum, ask lots of questions, look at the code they publish.
3. Go visit the team at their school, attend their seminar, watch the control system in action, get the look and feel of it.
4. Take detailed notes about how you can better incorporate the new system into your design for the 2009 season.
5. Come January, call the team again, ask them more questions, keep in touch, use their support, they are there to help you.
By the way, you can ask questions about things other than the control system!!!

I see this program as a valuable way to establish contacts between teams, and as a way for rookie teams and struggling teams to develop a relationship with an experienced team that can guide them along and mentor them. In case you haven’t realized yet, the word “participate” in the title of my post does not necessarily mean apply for the test (though I would encourage all teams to discuss and consider it), but it means to get everything you possibly can out of it. Take advantage of this opportunity! :yikes:

Sincerely,
Micah

Daniel_LaFleur 22-07-2008 12:54

Re: Call to all Teams: Participate in the Beta Test of the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Micah Siegel (Post 758051)
I see this program as a valuable way to establish contacts between teams, and as a way for rookie teams and struggling teams to develop a relationship with an experienced team that can guide them along and mentor them. In case you haven’t realized yet, the word “participate” in the title of my post does not necessarily mean apply for the test (though I would encourage all teams to discuss and consider it), but it means to get everything you possibly can out of it. Take advantage of this opportunity! :yikes:

Sincerely,
Micah

Here I disagree with you.

There is far more to be learned by hands on training, than by asking questions. FIRST is creating an unbalanced playing field be allowing those that are already established (3+ years in FIRST, "chairmans award winning" attributes) to get direct hands on experiance while the rest of the teams get to watch blogs.

I believe that, with this system, those that need the experiance the most (rookies) will be given the least amount of help.

Lets face it, the veteran teams that they want are the teams with already established software teams and this will give them a head start as to the nuances of the controller.

Don't get me wrong, I understand why they are asking for beta testers. I just wish that they wouldn't favor the teams that already have enough advantages.

As usual, this is JMHO.

Cory 22-07-2008 13:07

Re: Call to all Teams: Participate in the Beta Test of the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur (Post 758079)
Here I disagree with you.

There is far more to be learned by hands on training, than by asking questions. FIRST is creating an unbalanced playing field be allowing those that are already established (3+ years in FIRST, "chairmans award winning" attributes) to get direct hands on experiance while the rest of the teams get to watch blogs.

I believe that, with this system, those that need the experiance the most (rookies) will be given the least amount of help.

Lets face it, the veteran teams that they want are the teams with already established software teams and this will give them a head start as to the nuances of the controller.

Don't get me wrong, I understand why they are asking for beta testers. I just wish that they wouldn't favor the teams that already have enough advantages.

As usual, this is JMHO.

To be blunt, the reason they want those teams (In my opinion, obviously) is because those are the teams poised to do the most good. If you send a unit to a rookie team, they're not going to be able to do all the things FIRST wants them to do, and they won't be able to help the community via workshops, etc. You need a team to be well established, have lots of resources and know how to do a thing like this. Yes, it's going to be an advantage for the teams who get one, but how much of a disadvantage will we all be in if nobody gets one, and the bugs never get worked out of the system?

IndySam 22-07-2008 13:09

Re: Call to all Teams: Participate in the Beta Test of the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur (Post 758079)
Here I disagree with you.

There is far more to be learned by hands on training, than by asking questions. FIRST is creating an unbalanced playing field be allowing those that are already established (3+ years in FIRST, "chairmans award winning" attributes) to get direct hands on experiance while the rest of the teams get to watch blogs.

I believe that, with this system, those that need the experiance the most (rookies) will be given the least amount of help.

Lets face it, the veteran teams that they want are the teams with already established software teams and this will give them a head start as to the nuances of the controller.

Don't get me wrong, I understand why they are asking for beta testers. I just wish that they wouldn't favor the teams that already have enough advantages.

As usual, this is JMHO.

I couldn't disagree more. These strong veteran teams will be developing code we can all use. Rookies most of all will benefit from the work of these teams.

These team will be laying the ground work for teams without the programming knowledge and ability. They will make it possible for other teams to build competitive robots.

Billfred 22-07-2008 18:28

Re: Call to all Teams: Participate in the Beta Test of the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur (Post 758079)
There is far more to be learned by hands on training, than by asking questions. FIRST is creating an unbalanced playing field be allowing those that are already established (3+ years in FIRST, "chairmans award winning" attributes) to get direct hands on experiance while the rest of the teams get to watch blogs.

Not just blogs, mind you--teams are being required to open up their shops to other teams (where one can see things up close, often by necessity if your shop's anything like mine), hold a Saturday workshop (another opportunity to see everything up close), and release all their code (which not only lets me see what they've done on my own time, but gives me a chance to turn their own firepower against them come regionals). It certainly appears that FIRST is doing everything within their power to minimize the competitive advantage these teams could receive. I don't know how one could get an edge on it, short of cheating.

Akash Rastogi 22-07-2008 18:43

Re: Call to all Teams: Participate in the Beta Test of the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur (Post 758079)
Here I disagree with you.

There is far more to be learned by hands on training, than by asking questions. FIRST is creating an unbalanced playing field be allowing those that are already established (3+ years in FIRST, "chairmans award winning" attributes) to get direct hands on experiance while the rest of the teams get to watch blogs.

I believe that, with this system, those that need the experiance the most (rookies) will be given the least amount of help.

Lets face it, the veteran teams that they want are the teams with already established software teams and this will give them a head start as to the nuances of the controller.

Don't get me wrong, I understand why they are asking for beta testers. I just wish that they wouldn't favor the teams that already have enough advantages.

As usual, this is JMHO.

I believe you made a big assumption about most veteran teams. For example, if we get picked, we will work as hard as possible to bring teams into our workshop to get as much of the same experience as we are getting. Don't assume things about other teams please.

Mr. Freeman 22-07-2008 18:44

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Giving the new system to the new teams early might be a better idea. The way it is now, the veteran teams selected for this program aren't going to run into problems because they've been given the system early. Rookie teams are going to have to learn the system as well as go through every other problem rookie teams face programming-wise (such as how to program).

I'm not sure how many bugs veteran teams are going to find in this system anyway. Isn't this just a small version of what NASA used on the mars rovers? (If not then someone correct me) I think NASA and NI would have already found any big problems with this system.

The veteran teams are going to help other teams learn how to use this system, but aren't they still put at an advantage?

Paul Copioli 22-07-2008 18:45

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Remember that the judges (I happen to be one of them) will be looking for teams that are willing to actually show (aka hands on) the hardware / software in live workshops much more than the minimum requires. The challenge will be getting to those areas that are far away from the selected sites.

Depending upon the number of controllers allocated, this will be a big challenge. If the teams that are selected have the good of the entire FIRST community in mind, then organizing these workshops in various locations will help eliminate some of this problem.

I envision step by step instructions on various parts of the system (including both hardware and software) that will even help teams that don't attend any workshops at all, because I believe that the attendance rate will be quite low as will the actual submission rate.

Akash Rastogi 22-07-2008 21:07

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Just had a question, will it be up to the teams to get the word out about any workshops they will be holding in various areas or will we be able to post that on the blogs to get the word out quickly and effectively?

-thanks

Chris Fultz 22-07-2008 22:29

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
I think the teams that agree to do this, and follow through with their plans, will gain a small advantage of "learning by doing", but i believe the entire community will gain an advantage by having teams working with the system, finding issues and sharing knowledge. I think this will make the official season and competition much better.

In reality, the top performing teams would probably get to a high level of performance even in just the six weeks of build season, this will let them bring lots of other teams with them this fall.

It will take a lot of work and effort and I applaud every team that is selected.

Kims Robot 22-07-2008 23:17

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
I can see how the newer teams might be worried about the advantages here, but I think if the judges do their jobs correctly, teams that already have a history of working with other teams will be chosen. For example, for the last two months, we have been running labview seminars for all of the local teams every other week. It started as an idea that we were in a panic over the new control system and wanted to train our kids over the summer, but then we realized we could just as easily invite all the other teams in the area to show up too. We also post it on our forum (you have to be logged in to see & download files) so that everyone can access it, especially if they miss a class.

Think about it, if you are going into your second year of FIRST and struggled to just barely program your robot last year, you may have even gotten some help from local teams... would you like to be selected and struggle your way through fighting out the bugs of the new control system? or be able to tag along with a more experienced team that might be able to move past the stages of troubleshooting bugs and actually be able to show you how to use the system? I think some people are underestimating the potential for major bugs in this system. Nothing against NI - we are VERY excited for this control system, but any engineer can tell you at the very first stages of development and Beta test, there are going to be a ton of bugs to work through. Beta teams will use the controller in ways the designers never thought of, and this is going to end up as MUCH more of a testing and troubleshooting environment than it is going to be "learning and gaining advantage over teams that dont have it". But we are thrilled that they are going to try and get as much hands on testing with this system before they actually send it out in the kit of parts... to be honest, we were scared that teams wouldnt get to touch the first model until kickoff... FIRST is doing us and themselves a HUGE service by putting out this program now... I see very little need to argue about the advantages & disadvantages. My suggestion? If you dont win it but wanted to... find your closest team that did win, or even set up online with another team to see how you can help them, to see what you can learn from them on a day to day basis rather than just sulking and reading the blogs...

I am glad to see that FIRST is going to require teams to open up all of the code that they develop, as I think it might usher in a new age of teams sharing. I know the Rochester teams have a great history of helping eachother with everything from preseason training to build season sharing of resources & mentors, I'm hoping that this will get more regions to do the same.

Kevin Sevcik 23-07-2008 00:18

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
If you've read through this thread and you're still skeptical about the ultimate benefit to giving beta units to select veteran teams, I have one simple argument.

For the past several years, CD and the FRC community have benefited from the programming and electrical expertise of the likes of Kevin Watson, Alan Anderson, Don Rotolo, dcbrown, Al Skierkiewicz, and numerous others. We've had Kevin's massively useful codebase and many intro programming seminars for rookies, in addition to all the tech support on CD.

Now picture how well things are going to go if all of our expert help suddenly disappears at the exact moment we have a huge paradigm shift in our control system. Everyone getting the control system at the same time means that suddenly no one is an expert. And no one has anywhere to turn for help. The veteran teams with very talented programming help will catch on quick enough, but rookies and less experienced teams are going to be left with no clue what's going on and no where to turn for help, as our experts are going to be far too busy playing catchup themselves to be nearly as effective as they are now. They'll certainly try, but on the whole, I think it makes a lot more sense to rebuild our grassroots support that's worked so well for us in the past, in stead of deliberately shooting ourselves in the foot in the name of complete fairness and equity.

Also, did anyone else notice that the email didn't mention anything about the C++ interface or whether or not a team will be using that over Labview? If you have two teams in an area, and one's dedicated to C++ and another to Labview, I think it makes perfect sense to let both teams into the program. But I didn't see any mention of it...

Daniel_LaFleur 23-07-2008 09:38

Re: Call to all Teams: Participate in the Beta Test of the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Billfred (Post 758131)
Not just blogs, mind you--teams are being required to open up their shops to other teams (where one can see things up close, often by necessity if your shop's anything like mine), hold a Saturday workshop (another opportunity to see everything up close), and release all their code (which not only lets me see what they've done on my own time, but gives me a chance to turn their own firepower against them come regionals). It certainly appears that FIRST is doing everything within their power to minimize the competitive advantage these teams could receive. I don't know how one could get an edge on it, short of cheating.

I know that the teams that are picked will do all they can to help other teams, but the nature of getting things first is that it's an advantage (and an unfair one at that).

Open up their shops? -- Yes they will do this, but seeing a robot/program run and getting a few questions answered vs actually programming it with the nuances of a specific controller are 2 different things. And it's the little things that those teams overcome that will be 'missed' by the teams that don't get that advantage.

Saturday workshops? -- 4 hours in a lecture/lab on a Saturday does not make up for 3+ hours Monday-Friday getting the thing running.

Release all the code? -- Does this include competition code? all the code from now til doomsay? or just until others get the RC? and when does this code have to be released by? getting code that runs on one machine does not mean that it will run on another without knowlege of why it runs (which the veteran teams are getting that knowlege, and the others aren't) and what will need to be modified.

Basically what I'm saying is that FIRST is basically telling 1st and 2nd year teams that they are not good enough to help the community, because they are new. And when you exclude some group from helping, you hurt everyone.

Again, I want to state that I know these teams will do what they can to help others ... but that doesn't change the fact that they are being given an advantage and that FIRST is deliberately excluding groups that may want to help.

tennispro9911 23-07-2008 09:48

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
First of all, I think its a huge unfair advantage for Veteran teams to get to test the RC before other teams.

I don't think anyone from a veteran team would say that they would ever learn more by going to a seminar rather than programming it themselves, or looking at code rather than writing it themselves, and seeing the results of it.

Its unfair that teams that are new, or have fewer resources are not allowed the same advantages as expert teams. I really don't think that point can be argued against.

However, thats reality, and thats the best thing for FIRST as a whole, and even for rookie teams. FIRST CANNOT give every team a RC early. Its not possible. FIRST needs to give it to the teams that benefit the community the best as a whole. Also, rookie teams benefit more by having expert teams help them, than they would without the help. This program does nothing to level the playing field. In fact, it possibly makes the playing field even more uneven, but it also helps ALL teams, and it helps avert possible disaster during the season.

Zflash 23-07-2008 10:08

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
The teams that were selected for the NI LabVIEW and Data Acquisition Pilot Program.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=40813 http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=50566
What did you learn from your experiences and is there a place that the FIRST community can go to in order to read lessons learned or helpful tips.
Some of our mentors have gone to a NI Lab View seminar at a local Marriott and have recievied some information but are eager to learn more.

Thanks in advance.

Arefin Bari 23-07-2008 10:13

Re: Call to all Teams: Participate in the Beta Test of the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur (Post 758240)
I know that the teams that are picked will do all they can to help other teams, but the nature of getting things first is that it's an advantage (and an unfair one at that).

Open up their shops? -- Yes they will do this, but seeing a robot/program run and getting a few questions answered vs actually programming it with the nuances of a specific controller are 2 different things. And it's the little things that those teams overcome that will be 'missed' by the teams that don't get that advantage.

Saturday workshops? -- 4 hours in a lecture/lab on a Saturday does not make up for 3+ hours Monday-Friday getting the thing running.

Release all the code? -- Does this include competition code? all the code from now til doomsay? or just until others get the RC? and when does this code have to be released by? getting code that runs on one machine does not mean that it will run on another without knowlege of why it runs (which the veteran teams are getting that knowlege, and the others aren't) and what will need to be modified.

Basically what I'm saying is that FIRST is basically telling 1st and 2nd year teams that they are not good enough to help the community, because they are new. And when you exclude some group from helping, you hurt everyone.

Again, I want to state that I know these teams will do what they can to help others ... but that doesn't change the fact that they are being given an advantage and that FIRST is deliberately excluding groups that may want to help.

Daniel, I understand where you are coming from and maybe it is a disadvantage because the 1st and 2nd year teams aren't getting the controller to mess around with before kickoff.

Here are few things I would like to point out...

1) We don't have single programmer on the team (Team 1345). We have had the help from Team 108's programmers and Kevin Watson's code.

2) It's just not a "lecture." FIRST teams function differently than most other organizations. If you are to ask an expert in FIRST (whether mechanical, electrical or software), they won't say no and they will explain the concept to you until you understand and I am willing to bet that teams who are chosen will have workshops for local teams which will be hands on and just not a lecture.

3) Teams who will beta test this control system will release codes. No they won't give you your robot's competition code. But we will at least have the default code. FIRST has already suggested programmers to look at specific programming language. If the default code is given to you and if your programmer has been training him/herself, he/she should be able to write the rest of the code. If not, take your robot out to the local team and ask them for help. They will help you with the code just as Team 108 did for Team 1345 this past season.

4) All the knowledge that I have gained from this FIRST program is from usually researching about different things. For example, I didn't have an actual transmission to play with when I designed my first transmission. I came out here and looked at what others have done. I took their design and modified it to my needs. Isn't that how engineering works?

I am assuming that there will be very few controllers for this beta testing. How do you propose FIRST to choose these few teams out of existing 1,500 teams around the world?

GaryVoshol 23-07-2008 11:49

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Everyone needs go back and read the first goal for this program:
Quote:

* Give as many teams as possible early hands-on exposure to the 2009 control system;
This will NOT be a case of one team gets the software to play with on their own, and everyone else gets to listen to seminars or read blogs. Successful team applications to get the beta-test will have to show how they are going to share it with others. I've already spoken with a mentor of a team likely to apply, and told him to include our team in their application for sharing the test, as an example of a team whose programmer has graduated. FIRST will no doubt be interested in finding out how user-friendly this system is for newbies. But they aren't going to give it to a newbie who can only test basic functions. Veteran teams are more likely to have advanced features on their robots.

In fact, I suspect several "powerhouse veteran" teams will submit joint applications. FIRST would be hard-pressed to decide which is the ONE best team to test the system in New England, or CA, or MI, or TX, or NY. A successful application will point out the multitude of functions that can be checked using 2 or 3 or 4 machines. Want to test standard drive, mechanum, crab? That will require more than one machine. Want to test more than one auto/hybrid mode? Want to test multiple limit switches, sensors, etc? Give the new controls to a team that will share them with as many teams as possible, and you'll get the widest test possible.

Cory 23-07-2008 12:25

Re: Call to all Teams: Participate in the Beta Test of the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur (Post 758240)
Basically what I'm saying is that FIRST is basically telling 1st and 2nd year teams that they are not good enough to help the community, because they are new. And when you exclude some group from helping, you hurt everyone.

This seems to be pretty much exactly what they are saying.

At the risk of sounding rude, or elitist, is there any indication that these teams are up to the task?

I'm sure some are, but most aren't. And even if some were, they're not going to be able to hold up on paper next to teams that have been around for 15 years, and exemplify every criteria FIRST is looking for. So ultimately the teams you mention get left out anyways, just with the appearance of the process being more "fair".

We have two options here. FIRST does what it's doing now, and gives out 15 beta units, or we get zip and everyone goes into 09 blind.

How many times has FIRST introduced new components, scoring systems, etc without them having properly tested? Can't we all just be happy and thank our lucky stars that for once they actually want input from the community, and are attempting to make what is sure to be a difficult transition a little bit smoother?

There's no way to have the cake and eat it too, here. Will beta test teams get an advantage? Yes, but it is necessary for the greater good of the program.

tennispro9911 23-07-2008 12:46

Re: Call to all Teams: Participate in the Beta Test of the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Cory (Post 758288)
This seems to be pretty much exactly what they are saying.

At the risk of sounding rude, or elitist, is there any indication that these teams are up to the task?

I'm sure some are, but most aren't. And even if some were, they're not going to be able to hold up on paper next to teams that have been around for 15 years, and exemplify every criteria FIRST is looking for. So ultimately the teams you mention get left out anyways, just with the appearance of the process being more "fair".

We have two options here. FIRST does what it's doing now, and gives out 15 beta units, or we get zip and everyone goes into 09 blind.

How many times has FIRST introduced new components, scoring systems, etc without them having properly tested? Can't we all just be happy and thank our lucky stars that for once they actually want input from the community, and are attempting to make what is sure to be a difficult transition a little bit smoother?

There's no way to have the cake and eat it too, here. Will beta test teams get an advantage? Yes, but it is necessary for the greater good of the program.

I Agree. Of course, the Poofs are quite possibly going to be a team getting a beta unit, and TigerTronics (my team) are definitely not getting one. I wish we were, but reality dictates that FIRST needs to do what is best for all, and not what is necessarily "fair."

Thats life.

Dmentor 23-07-2008 13:00

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
I am a mentor on a 2nd year team and FIRST seems to be taking a prudent course of action. Step back and treat this as an optimization problem. The goal is to obtain the best possible control system for 2009 with a limited set of resources. Technical know how, geographic location, track record, and yes fairness are all variables (add your own). How would you go about solving it? I can think of many alternatives but the advertised program seems pretty good.

Personally I'm excited about the potential to work closely with more experienced teams. I would love it if locally 116 or 612 were able to be part of the program but if not then are there any options to be able to coordinate with teams virtually? Just being able to review designs, code along with asking questions is valuable in my opinion.

Daniel_LaFleur 23-07-2008 13:19

Re: Call to all Teams: Participate in the Beta Test of the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Arefin Bari (Post 758247)
Daniel, I understand where you are coming from and maybe it is a disadvantage because the 1st and 2nd year teams aren't getting the controller to mess around with before kickoff.

Here are few things I would like to point out...

1) We don't have single programmer on the team (Team 1345). We have had the help from Team 108's programmers and Kevin Watson's code.

I'm not too concerned about my teams ability to program. We have 8 students that can and will be programming. Imbedded systems are different than most as they tend to have their own way of handling and addressing I/O. It's these nuances that will not (unless they are specifically mentored) be conveyed well to the newer teams.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arefin Bari (Post 758247)
2) It's just not a "lecture." FIRST teams function differently than most other organizations. If you are to ask an expert in FIRST (whether mechanical, electrical or software), they won't say no and they will explain the concept to you until you understand and I am willing to bet that teams who are chosen will have workshops for local teams which will be hands on and just not a lecture.

Again, the issue is not whether or not teams will answer questions ... of course they will.

The issue is that the teams without knowlege of how the controller responds (to things like PID controls) won't know the proper questions to ask.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arefin Bari (Post 758247)
3) Teams who will beta test this control system will release codes. No they won't give you your robot's competition code. But we will at least have the default code. FIRST has already suggested programmers to look at specific programming language. If the default code is given to you and if your programmer has been training him/herself, he/she should be able to write the rest of the code. If not, take your robot out to the local team and ask them for help. They will help you with the code just as Team 108 did for Team 1345 this past season.

I wasn't asking about my teams robots code ... I was asking about their competition code. Billfred said something about using their own firepower against them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arefin Bari (Post 758247)
4) All the knowledge that I have gained from this FIRST program is from usually researching about different things. For example, I didn't have an actual transmission to play with when I designed my first transmission. I came out here and looked at what others have done. I took their design and modified it to my needs. Isn't that how engineering works?

Sometimes. If you want to learn how something works, taking apart one is a good start.

Most of the time, however, engineering is about problem solving. Generally you are not given a working object ... instead you are given a list of specifications and you need to make a device that matches all of those specs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arefin Bari (Post 758247)
I am assuming that there will be very few controllers for this beta testing. How do you propose FIRST to choose these few teams out of existing 1,500 teams around the world?

Teams should submit test plans for what they are going to do. They should be required to only have the beta units for a fixed length of time to ensure that their competitive advantage is minimalized. All code should be accessable (read only) to all teams at all times. All beta testers should be required to keep and publish (on a official FIRST site) an engineering notebook (possibly an engineering diary as well) on their findings.

Before kickoff All teams should recieve their controller, with the beta teams recieving theirs 1/2 their testing time later.

The above would limit the advantage, not exclude any group (as it's only based on the test plan), and would still give beta testing reports to all.

JM(NS)HO

tennispro9911 23-07-2008 13:24

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
I agree. Working with experienced teams in our general area, 365, 341, 20, 191 and others would be a fabulous experience. Also, I honestly cannot think of a better way to do this than the proposed one. (Unless, of course, you gave one to my team AND did this, :D ) Joking aside, this is a great way to do it, and although its not perfect, nothing is. For example, take this quote "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried." ~ Winston Churchill. I would say something similar about this program.

Arefin Bari 23-07-2008 13:51

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Daniel,

Targeting every single one of my views won't get you anywhere. Perhaps, you should write a letter to FIRST if you are that concerned. Other than that, I shall direct you to Cory's post above. I don't think I can put it in better words. If you would like to have further conversations, feel free to pm me. Rather than sitting here going at it, I would like to be thankful that FIRST is even getting 15 systems out to teams for beta testing. I don't know about you, but I know I will have enough documents to work with for next season as far as these controllers go.

p.s. - I understand that you are not liking the fact that the 1st and 2nd year teams aren't getting a chance. The only way to take initiation about this is to convince FIRST.

JaneYoung 23-07-2008 14:12

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
I think this initiative was developed to help bridge the gaps that rookies and young teams have in some areas. I also like the posts in this thread that 'get' the purpose of this. I view the purpose as better preparation, hands-on experience, training, and sharing of knowledge gained. Building stronger community: strengthening teams and teams working together.

We also have to have a level of trust in this, trusting those involved such as people like our WFA go-to guy, Paul Copioli.

Elgin Clock 23-07-2008 14:40

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
If anyone really wants to complain about not being able to test these suckers out, I would consider the fact that the base model of the new system goes for at least 3 grand ($2100 with a discount if you buy a quantity of 100 course.).

For FIRST to even consider trusting teams ahead of time with some of these, let alone a quantity of 15 for "pre-release" for the 2009 season... is awesome.

But if you still want to complain a team will have an unfair advantage over you, go ahead & buy one.
Oh, btw, that 3 grand price tag doesn't include modules or additional components as shown on the demo bots in Atlanta, & other places such as IRI.

http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/203964

Daniel_LaFleur 23-07-2008 14:42

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Arefin Bari (Post 758313)
Daniel,

Targeting every single one of my views won't get you anywhere. Perhaps, you should write a letter to FIRST if you are that concerned. Other than that, I shall direct you to Cory's post above. I don't think I can put it in better words. If you would like to have further conversations, feel free to pm me. Rather than sitting here going at it, I would like to be thankful that FIRST is even getting 15 systems out to teams for beta testing. I don't know about you, but I know I will have enough documents to work with for next season as far as these controllers go.

p.s. - I understand that you are not liking the fact that the 1st and 2nd year teams aren't getting a chance. The only way to take initiation about this is to convince FIRST.

Arefin,

I apologize if it appeared that I was 'Targeting your views'. That was not my intent. My intent was to air my concerns about the way things re being handled in a constructive manner and to get a dialog started. It appears as if my constructive criticism was not taken as constructive, and for that I apologise.

It would be interesting to chart how well the teams that get the beta units against those who didn't and see if it actually gave them a distinct advantage or not.

tennispro9911 23-07-2008 15:20

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur (Post 758324)
Arefin,

I apologize if it appeared that I was 'Targeting your views'. That was not my intent. My intent was to air my concerns about the way things re being handled in a constructive manner and to get a dialog started. It appears as if my constructive criticism was not taken as constructive, and for that I apologise.

It would be interesting to chart how well the teams that get the beta units against those who didn't and see if it actually gave them a distinct advantage or not.

Of course the teams that get the units will do better on average. But thats not because they got the units. It may or may not help, but think about it. Lets say you give units to 1114 and 254, just to use teams that a lot of people know, and that probably will do very well next year regardless. If they do better than a rookie team, do you really think thats because of a slight advantage of seeing the RC first?

The teams that get these will do awesome if they do or do not get them. What would be more interesting is if the teams that go to the seminars that these teams put on do better. Thats truly a test if this program works as intended.

JesseK 23-07-2008 15:50

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Do we know if/when the schedule of area workshops will be sent around to teams? It seems like a logical "yes" but I'd like to know the workshop schedule as soon as possible, if possible. Advance scheduling is key to coordinating other FRC auxiliary projects, FTC season kickoff between a few different schools, SEAPerch, and a myriad of things that come up in the Fall at work.

If a team gets it in the DC/NoVa/Baltimore/Richmond area, I'd also like to offer help either in the "ways to run it in" planning or the building of the test platforms one weekend. While I know our team currently does not have the capacity to do the full beta test (SEAPerch is really taking off...), at least two of our veteran students are interested in getting more design/build experience preseason. Cheers!

R.C. 23-07-2008 19:07

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
I don't want to be rude, but the veteran teams should get the rc first. We, 1323, are probably not going to get the rc to beta test and we are 6th year team. You can learn a lot from just reading and seeing pics. So Rookie teams don't worry about not getting the rc as early as the veteran teams.

Good Luck everyone for the 09 Season.

Greg Needel 23-07-2008 20:53

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
The main reason I agree with FIRST in this case is mainly because of time frame. While as someone who is starting a rookie team this year I would love to get my hands on a controller the right decision has been made.

If teams chosen will be getting the controller September 15th and will be doing work for a couple months. The issues I see is the time frame for fixing problems before kickoff. If a team discovers a hardware or interface bug there will be little or no time to fix it before they need to be in the kits. Putting it in the hands of teams that may have the ability to fix those problems will be crucial.

For example it was veterans who came up with the new match pairing algorithm. Back in the Hatch days I remember watching some of my peers debugging the Hatch software on the fly week one so the other regonals could go off. I am not saying that young teams don't have the expertise to do this, but I would rather put my money on someone who has a track record of success.

As for the arguments about giving veteran teams a huge advantage let me put it bluntly. The teams in question constantly have that advantage over everyone else. While it may not be as obvious as this situation when it comes down to it those teams have the experience, the resources, the people, and ultimately the right combination that can only come from years of hard work. If you honestly think that getting your controller a few months early will magically boost your performance to that of 1114, 330, 245, and others you are sadly mistaken. If you are a good team then the shared experiences of the other veterans will make you stronger, and if you are struggling rookie team don't worry other people will have your back.

Ken Patton 23-07-2008 21:27

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
One thing that teams who are submitting Beta-test proposals could do - and I promise I will look for it in evaluating proposals - is to clearly show how they are going to make it better for the new teams to get running without the major efforts that the Beta-test teams will be devoting to this. That would help to address the concerns of people who think there might be some advantage. If new teams can go through the Beta-test primers and get up in running in less time than it took the Beta-testers themselves (after all, the inital problems ideally would be solved in Beta-test), that will be an advantage to the new teams.

Beta-test teams need to think of the valuable pieces of the puzzle - solutions and instructive steps that will be needed by all teams - and then put together a proposal that will address those puzzle pieces. Think of the features needed in our robots. There are a lot of areas where good solutions will be of value to many teams.

There are going to be areas where proposals might overlap, and it seems to me that if teams did a great job of documenting solutions, we could get away with less overlap.

Ken

AdamHeard 23-07-2008 21:46

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
It makes perfect sense for them to target the teams they are; They only have 15 units to give out, and they want teams overall to get most out of this program.

Even the most amazing 2nd year team can't hold a candle to what 365 and other similar teams can do to benefit the community if they were to be selected as part of the beta program. If they removed the stipulations I think the 15 units would go to the same teams anyway.

Kims Robot 23-07-2008 21:50

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Silly question... where did the number of 15 units come from? Best I can tell Cory was just throwing a number out there, as I dont see it officially anywhere... and before people get too bent up about it, I was wondering if I missed it somewhere...

Cory 23-07-2008 21:55

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Kims Robot (Post 758412)
Silly question... where did the number of 15 units come from? Best I can tell Cory was just throwing a number out there, as I dont see it officially anywhere... and before people get too bent up about it, I was wondering if I missed it somewhere...

I heard somewhere it's 15.

tennispro9911 23-07-2008 22:54

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Greg Needel (Post 758401)
As for the arguments about giving veteran teams a huge advantage let me put it bluntly. The teams in question constantly have that advantage over everyone else. While it may not be as obvious as this situation when it comes down to it those teams have the experience, the resources, the people, and ultimately the right combination that can only come from years of hard work. If you honestly think that getting your controller a few months early will magically boost your performance to that of 1114, 330, 245, and others you are sadly mistaken. If you are a good team then the shared experiences of the other veterans will make you stronger, and if you are struggling rookie team don't worry other people will have your back.

Exactly. There is a reason that 1114 has won 5 regionals and the championship in the last 2 years and it isn't luck. Teams do not have the same resources, and teams are not on a level playing field. This will help rookies and newer teams as much if not more than the teams that are consistantly great.

marccenter 25-07-2008 15:23

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Would it be possible for teams to combine resources in a local geographical region to beta-test the FRC 2009 controller? What would the mechanism be for organizing this? I for one would be willing to assist a team of folks willing to tackle the FRC 2009 in the Detroit area, but may not able to commit to implementing a full blown solution as proposed without additional resources.
Thoughts?

Shadow503 12-08-2008 12:52

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
People should remember that this is a BETA test.

Code:

"Betaware is a nickname for software which has passed the alpha testing stage of development and has been released to a limited amount of users for software testing before its official release. Beta testing allows the software to undergo usability testing with users who provide feedback, so that any malfunctions these users find in the software can be reported to the developers and fixed."
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_test#Beta]

The intention of this is so that NI and WPI can work out any bugs before the season. Everyone in FIRST benefits from a functional, stable control system. Rookie teams may have a hard time setting up and using the controller. NI and WPI need teams that will be able to delve into the low levels of this controller's capabilities.

And as mentioned before, FIRST is doing an excellent job of ensuring that teams that don't beta test the controller will still get a fair chance. And I don't foresee these 4 hour seminars being dry lectures. I know I would rather help a rookie programmer by giving them hands on experience than by babbling on about setting up I/O functions for 4 hours.

Andy Baker 12-08-2008 14:50

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by FIRST (Post 757415)
Greetings Teams:

....

FIRST is asking interested, eligible FRC teams to submit a written proposal via this application form <http://www.usfirst.org/forms.aspx?ekfrm=9446> by August 15th, 2008 on why they would be a good candidate, how they intend to collaborate and work with their neighboring teams, and what they intend to do if they receive the new control system.

...

Applications for beta test teams will be reviewed by a panel of Championship Woodie Flowers Award Winners.

Selected teams will be notified by September 1st, 2008 and control systems will be shipped starting September 15th, 2008 after FIRST receives the test schedule and plan from the beta tester. Please direct questions regarding submissions to FRCbetatest@usfirst.org.

...

Go Teams!

This is a reminder that the applications for beta testing are due to this Friday, August 15th.

Sincerely,
Andy Baker

Richard McClellan 12-08-2008 21:59

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Freeman (Post 758134)
Giving the new system to the new teams early might be a better idea. The way it is now, the veteran teams selected for this program aren't going to run into problems because they've been given the system early. Rookie teams are going to have to learn the system as well as go through every other problem rookie teams face programming-wise (such as how to program).

I'm not sure how many bugs veteran teams are going to find in this system anyway. Isn't this just a small version of what NASA used on the mars rovers? (If not then someone correct me) I think NASA and NI would have already found any big problems with this system.

The veteran teams are going to help other teams learn how to use this system, but aren't they still put at an advantage?

This is the same hardware, but the software libraries for both LabVIEW and C++ are totally new, so they will need to be debugged.


Quote:

Originally Posted by Kims Robot (Post 758412)
Silly question... where did the number of 15 units come from? Best I can tell Cory was just throwing a number out there, as I dont see it officially anywhere... and before people get too bent up about it, I was wondering if I missed it somewhere...

According to an NI employee over at the booth by the demo robot at NI Week, they will be shipping 20 systems out to beta teams. Of course, this is not official, this is just what I heard.

Mr. Freeman 13-08-2008 13:39

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Only 20 systems are being distributed? I know that the majority of teams are not going to be making 8 hour(or more) road trips to go visit a team across a state, or in another state to attend Saturday lectures and labs. I think more than 20 systems need to be distributed for most teams to have any hands-on experience with the controller.

whytheheckme 13-08-2008 14:05

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
I believe that only 12 systems are being distributed.

Jacob

JaneYoung 13-08-2008 14:37

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Taken from the initial email:
Quote:

While FIRST would like to provide every team with a control system for evaluation in the beta test, FIRST must limit the scope of this test program due to the number of control systems available at this early date.

Our beta test team selection criteria, out of necessity, narrows the list of potential participants but is not intended to favor or disfavor any specific teams. One goal of the beta test program is to strengthen local communication and support networks, so FIRST will select the teams that will do the best job of disseminating the knowledge accumulated through testing.
Based on the email, it is clear there will be a limited # of teams that will do the testing and provide the information required, as stated in that same email.

I am not a fan of guessing, posting guesses, or hinting at information - esp. if it doesn't really contribute in a beneficial manner.

JaneYoung 13-08-2008 15:33

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Andy Baker (Post 761343)
This is a reminder that the applications for beta testing are due to this Friday, August 15th.

I was re-reading the thread and noticed Andy's reminder. This is a time when that innovative notion kicks in that some or many of us can feel antsy about and I'd like to take a moment to commend the teams that have taken the initiative to put forth a proposal, stepping up to be leaders in their communities. I'd also like to encourage teams who are interested but have not submitted a proposal, to do so by Friday. My thinking is: the more submissions, the better the selection for the beta testing. Good luck all.

Jane

Kims Robot 13-08-2008 17:17

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Anyone else notice that they posed a 2500 character limit but didnt give a count in the application? Im hoping they will be a few characters lenient for teams that try to push right to the 2500 characters using word or excel or some other character count method... :)

ttldomination 13-08-2008 17:40

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Anyone else having trouble coming up with a good essay under 2500 characters? Including Spaces?

We're having a hard time and its getting harder and harder to post it.

Kims, the system won't accept over 2500. Trust me, i've tried.

Paul Copioli 13-08-2008 18:42

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Here is a warning for those of you thinking of posting over 2500 characters (becasue the system will let you): don't do it. Your entire essay will not even be looked at. Please follow this simple rule. Be concise and be clear as everyone has this limit.

DonRotolo 13-08-2008 19:09

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Zflash (Post 758246)
The teams that were selected for the NI LabVIEW and Data Acquisition Pilot Program.

1676 is one of those teams; we did post a bunch of info somewhere buy I can't remember where (nor can I find it); I will research it see what I can find. IIRC we learned a lot about LabView, and it helped us refine some of the code on the robot by measuring accelerations and temperatures and stuff.

Anyway, about the 2500 word limit: There is a quote attributed to Mark Twain and to Blaise Pascal (I suspect Twain is the one), to the effect
Quote:

I apologize for the long letter, I did not have the time to write a short one
What this means is that it is more difficult to make your point in a short essay than in a long one. You need to be a good writer to shorten an essay.

I wonder if spaces count towards the 2500? I would think so.

Don

Rosiebotboss 13-08-2008 21:14

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Don Rotolo (Post 761495)

I wonder if spaces count towards the 2500? I would think so.

Don

Yes. 2500 characters. Periods, commas, spaces, quotation marks, etc. etc...

Ours came in at 2499.:D

whytheheckme 13-08-2008 23:34

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Kims Robot (Post 761479)
Anyone else notice that they posed a 2500 character limit but didnt give a count in the application? Im hoping they will be a few characters lenient for teams that try to push right to the 2500 characters using word or excel or some other character count method... :)

Looking at the HTML code:

Code:

<td><textarea id="Why" onblur="design_validate_js('this.text.length &lt;= 2500',this,'Allow maximum of 2500 characters');"
title="Why" name="Why" rows="5" cols="40" ektdesignns_validation="max1000Chars"
ektdesignns_basetype="textbox" ektdesignns_validate="js:this.text.length &lt;= 2500"
ektdesignns_invalidmsg="Allow maximum of 2500 characters"
ektdesignns_name="Why" ektdesignns_caption="Why"
ektdesignns_nodetype="element" max="2500"></textarea>
  </td>

we can see that the text field will only permit 2500 characters.

Just a heads up.

Jacob

BrianT103 14-08-2008 10:17

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Could someone who knows for certain as to what the 2,500 character limit pertains to reply to this post. It was previously stated that the 2,500 limit included spaces, could someone on the judging panel verify this statement.

Kims Robot 14-08-2008 10:24

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Copioli (Post 761492)
Here is a warning for those of you thinking of posting over 2500 characters (becasue the system will let you): don't do it. Your entire essay will not even be looked at. Please follow this simple rule. Be concise and be clear as everyone has this limit.

But how do we know what the 2,500 characters is? We did our Chairmans Essay in word and it came to 9,998 characters, and when we put it into the chairmans form, the CA form told us we had 10,012!! So if there is no feedback to the submitter and they are cutting it close, how are they to know that the count that they used in Word isnt the same as the count in the website script? We buffered ours by several characters to hope to make sure, but cant tell if there is any real way to know if we are under the scripts version of 2500...

David Doerr 14-08-2008 11:17

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
I'm not on the judging panel, but I have had the experience of submitting an application.

When I did our team's submittal yesterday August 13th, a red-dashed-line box appeared around the submitter-box and a popup window appeared indicating that I had tried to submit more than 2500 characters.

Prior to that, when I checked our application with MS Word, it appeared as though we had under 2500 characters -- including spaces, periods, etc. I suspect that the submitter box checks end-of-line characters in addition to those that MS Word counts. I removed about 40-some characters and our application submitted correctly.

You could check all characters, including end-of-lines, if you have access to unix with the "wc -c" command.

Hope this helps...

Dave D

Shadow503 14-08-2008 14:59

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Does anyone know if the character limit is just a front end thing or is the php code going to re validate the essay before submitting. If there is no server side code enforcing this, maybe some inline javascript could buy us a few more characters. . .

Eugene Fang 14-08-2008 15:05

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadow503 (Post 761592)
Does anyone know if the character limit is just a front end thing or is the php code going to re validate the essay before submitting. If there is no server side code enforcing this, maybe some inline javascript could buy us a few more characters. . .

That wouldn't be graciously professional.

whytheheckme 14-08-2008 15:16

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadow503 (Post 761592)
Does anyone know if the character limit is just a front end thing or is the php code going to re validate the essay before submitting. If there is no server side code enforcing this, maybe some inline javascript could buy us a few more characters. . .

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pikat (Post 761593)
That wouldn't be graciously professional.

Regardless, I don't think it'd work. Whatever database this is going into probably has a filter on the incoming data, and by bypassing the javascript on the page, you could even corrupt your own entry, if there is nothing checking the data coming in.

And it wouldn't be GP.
Jacob

Shadow503 14-08-2008 15:57

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
I'm not sure I buy the GP argument. Would anyone really care if it was a few characters over? Their character counter includes line breaks, so arguably we could use the additional characters for formatting to improve the readability of the essay, thus making the job of the person reviewing the essay easier. ;) I do agree that it probably wouldn't work, as they likely already have code in place to trim quotation marks & ect. so they probably threw in a filter too.

Either way, we're under 2500 characters, so I'm not trying anything funny. Good luck to all who are applying! :D

=Martin=Taylor= 14-08-2008 16:11

Re: Call to all Teams: Participate in the Beta Test of the New Control System
 
I have a pretty obvious question. (someone might already have answered it)

What happens if no team from our area gets the chance to beta test the new system? After all, there are only 15 of them... Do we just get to read about it online?

I wouldn't count on 254 getting the system. They aren't exactly famous for their autonomous programming capabilities...

To quote a great man:
Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill Gold (Post 761228)
What's an autonomous mode?


Alan Anderson 14-08-2008 16:21

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadow503 (Post 761600)
I'm not sure I buy the GP argument. Would anyone really care if it was a few characters over?

The answer to that would be yes. Specifically, the people who care are the ones who will be reading the application:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Copioli (Post 761492)
Here is a warning for those of you thinking of posting over 2500 characters (becasue the system will let you): don't do it. Your entire essay will not even be looked at. Please follow this simple rule. Be concise and be clear as everyone has this limit.


Greg Needel 14-08-2008 16:39

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadow503 (Post 761600)
I'm not sure I buy the GP argument. Would anyone really care if it was a few characters over? Their character counter includes line breaks, so arguably we could use the additional characters for formatting to improve the readability of the essay, thus making the job of the person reviewing the essay easier. ;) I do agree that it probably wouldn't work, as they likely already have code in place to trim quotation marks & ect. so they probably threw in a filter too.

Either way, we're under 2500 characters, so I'm not trying anything funny. Good luck to all who are applying! :D

This is one of those instances that I really think GP does apply (although people tend to use it as a scapegoat for things they don't like around here) The rules of the beta test application are the same for everyone and while you "may only be adding a few characters" you are intentionally trying to circumvent rules that are in place.

Also in a similar note since this beta test has said that they want chairman's teams what kind of role model team does things like this. Now I am not trying to make a big deal about this but every once in a while people need to stop and think about what they say or do from those perspectives.

I read and article reciently that talked about the current generation of technical savvy people and how many feel entitled to whatever is technically possible. For example borrowing photos from google images on the easy side or from a harder perspective leaching data from a site for your own uses. While these are both technically possible there are ethics around doing so. Basically just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you should and being savvy enough doesn't entitle you to being above the law. < enough ranting now back to your regular scheduled thread.>

Travis Hoffman 14-08-2008 16:40

Re: Call to all Teams: Participate in the Beta Test of the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Hachiban VIII (Post 761602)
I have a pretty obvious question. (someone might already have answered it)

What happens if no team from our area gets the chance to beta test the new system? After all, there are only 15 of them... Do we just get to read about it online?

Divide the total geographic area populated by FIRST teams worldwide by 15 or whatever the heck the actual number is, and you still get......a really freaking big area. I imagine most teams will have to LEARN (don't say "read" - we want audiovisual documentation too!) about it online as they will be too far distant from their closest beta tester to actually visit them and see the hardware in person.

I hope whichever teams are given this burden and responsibility to the FIRST community, they leverage whatever technology they have at their disposal to effectively demonstrate their findings to all of us. Written documentation alone simply isn't enough. The community needs pictures, videos, online tutorials - perhaps even teleconferences where remote teams can see and speak with beta testers in realtime. If you arrange seminars for in-person demonstrations, plan for an online component as well, via webcasting and other means.

Whoever is chosen for this privilege - be creative and thorough in how you share with the rest of the community. We're all depending on you!

Aside from all beta test teams learning the control system basics early on, which is a given (and hopefully beta testers will conspire early and often to decide who is going to document what and when and how such that we end up with the most diverse body of documentation possible following this testing phase, instead of 15 "This is how you turn the thing on" videos :P), will there be any mechanism in place to ensure that teams will specialize in enough "custom" development areas that there isn't too much overlap? I don't think we need 12 teams focusing on vision development, for instance. Who will manage the overall program coordination?

JaneYoung 14-08-2008 17:16

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadow503 (Post 761600)
I'm not sure I buy the GP argument. Would anyone really care if it was a few characters over?

Just to add one more thought to this.
Quote:

Applications for beta test teams will be reviewed by a panel of Championship Woodie Flowers Award Winners.
This is the panel who will review your submission. They became WFAs because of their integrity, their contributions to FIRST, and their own understanding and demonstrations of Gracious Professionalism. I think it is very very cool that the WFAs are a part of this effort in such a wonderful way. It's one of the things that makes FIRST so unique and so special and we should never lose sight of why we have the Woodie Flowers Award in the first place and how that impacts our community. :)

I read the rest of your post stating that you are under the character limit, I just wanted to take an opportunity to talk about our WFAs and their value.

Dowjonesbotics 14-08-2008 17:19

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadow503 (Post 761600)
I'm not sure I buy the GP argument. Would anyone really care if it was a few characters over?

I'm sorry but even considering doing something like this is pathetic and I hope that you don't do anything stupid like this. :mad:

Please note that this person does not reflect the views of team 141...he's just making himself look bad. That team would never even consider such a thing.

DonRotolo 14-08-2008 20:52

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman (Post 761605)
will there be any mechanism in place to ensure that teams will specialize in enough "custom" development areas that there isn't too much overlap? I don't think we need 12 teams focusing on vision development, for instance. Who will manage the overall program coordination?

We cover that in our submission - the selected teams need to understand the burden and disadvantage they are subjecting themselves to.

Disadvantage? Yup. All the time we'll be spending fiddling with the controller will be time we cannot cover other subjects in Pi-Tech Academy, so while we might get good at the controller, we'll have a LOT to make up for every other thing it takes to build a FIRST Robot.

Burden? Yes. You think this is a cakewalk? Not only do you need a very intense program - we are thinking it will be almost like build season for 3 extra months - you have the additional burden of documenting everything. And not just "post a note on CD every few weeks" - I mean, you need to make teams from anywhere really, really understand this beastie, from afar - you need papers, code, video, drawings...a LOT of extra work, compared to just the Academy or even build season.

I'm not sure my family will be as understanding as they are in January. Heck, it might not even be fun. But Professionals do what they have to do, consistently and reliably. The gracious part comes from not grumbling or slacking.

The reward? Like last year at GTR, when some kid who lived a thousand miles from home, who I'd only conversed with by e-mail, found me and thanked me for teaching him how to do PID. Priceless.

Don

Andrew Schuetze 14-08-2008 21:48

Who has submitted a Beta test application?
 
Team 499, Toltechs, up-loaded our application yesterday. I am more than curious as to how many teams have done so and from what geographical areas? San Antonio, Texas

Do we need a new thread for this or can we keep adding to this one?

APS

Akash Rastogi 14-08-2008 23:45

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Don Rotolo (Post 761642)
We cover that in our submission - the selected teams need to understand the burden and disadvantage they are subjecting themselves to.

Disadvantage? Yup. All the time we'll be spending fiddling with the controller will be time we cannot cover other subjects in Pi-Tech Academy, so while we might get good at the controller, we'll have a LOT to make up for every other thing it takes to build a FIRST Robot.

That's probably the same thing that I would be worried about disrupting if we get the chance to beta test. MORT U would be hurt but then I remember how much the entire FIRST community in our area would benefit. If you guys get the system to test and learn about then maybe the members that you are not able to teach, you can send over to our high school for MORT U. It could work out if we really need it to.:]

Karthik 15-08-2008 02:09

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Team 1114 just submitted our application. Hopefully we'll be selected, as we're very excited to possibly develop some code that can be used by the entire community in 2009. As Don said, the teams selected will have to do a lot of work, but it will definitely be worth it.

Shadow503 15-08-2008 08:53

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
I'm assuming the fanatical response to my posts is only a result of humor not transferring well over the interwebs. . .
Oh well, I do have to say this is somewhat entertaining.

Once again, good luck to all the teams that submitted apps. Hopefully enough documentation will be made available on the web for teams that don't have a beta test site in their area.

Edit: Just to clear things up further, I never had any serious intention to actually circumvent the character limit. Shoulda' made that clearer ;)

IndySam 15-08-2008 09:31

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Big thanks to all the teams willing to do this beta test. It will be a huge amount of work and immensely valuable to the FIRST community.

dachickindapit 15-08-2008 09:42

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
HOT has submitted an application for the beta test. Like Dave said, we had issues with the 2500 character limit, but we got it down under the limit for submission.

Alan Anderson 15-08-2008 11:58

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
TechnoKats are in the stack! or something.

I submitted Team 45's application this morning. The comments about character limits confuse me -- I was at 2481 after saying everything I needed to.

Madison 15-08-2008 12:26

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
This is the most poorly designed application form I've ever seen.

Akash Rastogi 15-08-2008 12:54

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by M. Krass (Post 761728)
This is the most poorly designed application form I've ever seen.

How so?

We submitted a while ago and we're eager to hear from FIRST and finally show NJ teams what we've got :)

Manoel 15-08-2008 13:17

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by M. Krass (Post 761728)
This is the most poorly designed application form I've ever seen.

And you're only saying that because you didn't have to input a Brazilian phone number - it just doesn't work! ;)

Other than that, we're happy with our submission and hope for the best to be selected.


PS - 2500 characters isn't even a full page! :ahh:

Cory 15-08-2008 13:57

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Teams 100, 254, and 668 have submitted joint applications, and look forward to a chance at being selected for the beta test.

Madison 15-08-2008 14:03

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by lilstogi11 (Post 761731)
How so?

We submitted a while ago and we're eager to hear from FIRST and finally show NJ teams what we've got :)

The fields for awards information are clunky and they're certainly not doing any favors for someone trying to submit awards information for more than one team.

It seems like the entire thing could've been better integrated into TIMS to poll for that sort of information and then presented it to the judging panel in a more organized manner.

TKM.368 15-08-2008 14:51

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by M. Krass (Post 761728)
This is the most poorly designed application form I've ever seen.

VIMS ranks up there...

ttldomination 15-08-2008 14:59

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Team 1261 submitted three days ago. :D.

We, and 3 other FTC teams, await eagerly. :D.

Madison 15-08-2008 15:15

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Okay, I just submitted an application on behalf of most of western Washington. I'm not even going to try naming everyone.

Brandon Holley 15-08-2008 18:20

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Teams 125 and 246 have submitted together.

JB987 15-08-2008 23:21

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Team 987 also submitted an application and look forward to a chance to learn and share...

BornaE 17-08-2008 17:01

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Teams 39 and 842 have submitted a joint application as well. Looking forward to it.

Kims Robot 18-08-2008 10:32

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
1511 Submitted with 191, 378, 1126, 1405, 1507, 1551, 2228 & 2340 (anyone recognize the Ruckus committee & our labview teams?? - lol). We are acting as the leaders, so we just submitted our award info and the essay is based mostly off our team experience since it just seemed easier for the form and to keep the characters short.

Good luck to all the teams that get a system... its going to be a crazy preseason!

Leav 19-08-2008 04:04

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Hi Kim (and anyone else who submitted for more than 3 teams)

just wondering: what your rational was in submitting for so many teams?
do you plan on moving the controller between those teams evenly?
or perhaps all those teams are the one's who are in your area and will benefit from your team having a controller and giving classes on it?

My team contemplated a joint submission with another team, but the situation In Israel is slightly different:
http://www.iris.org.il/images/usa.gif
(I don't know what iris.org.il is all about and I don't necessarily approve of the content. I just googled "Israel size comparison")

we hope to have 50 teams next year, but all those teams are at the very most a 5 hour drive away (from where my team is located). so we just stated that we plan to have "Controller weekend(s)" for all teams at our place.

I'm just hoping First will send us (any team in Israel) a controller...

Good Luck!
-Leav

Edit:
Quote:

Originally Posted by 0705920 (Post 761915)
Teams 39 and 842 have submitted a joint application as well. Looking forward to it.

;) (or did I miss his/her/their identity being revealed?)

Andrew Schuetze 19-08-2008 08:39

Beta Test poll
 
Upon reading here that several teams submitted joint applications, I became curious as to how many applications have more than one team listed. I started a poll in another forum since I couldn't add a poll to this thread. Please post your number in the poll and then comment on how that came to be. Please vote even if you are a single team application such as is the Toltech application.

Poll

Kims Robot 19-08-2008 19:26

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Leav (Post 762116)
Hi Kim (and anyone else who submitted for more than 3 teams)
just wondering: what your rational was in submitting for so many teams?
do you plan on moving the controller between those teams evenly?
or perhaps all those teams are the one's who are in your area and will benefit from your team having a controller and giving classes on it?

In Rochester, a lot of the teams work together on several different things, everything from Ruckus planning to local demos to helping the Rookie/younger teams. While our team probably has the strongest labview base, there are other teams that were very interested but just didnt feel they could handle running the whole Beta test themselves. We took the lead and asked them to join us because we feel they will have expertise and time that could help us as well, and want more than just our team to have hands on with this system.

We will likely be the center team, hosting the controller, but we had plans of having saturdays where other teams could bring their robot in, demos at Ruckus, webcast trainings and phone conferences to involve teams further out, and a lot of documentation on our wiki & forums. We will be inviting all of the teams that want to drive out here to be involved in any/all of the process, but these were just the teams that we have been interacting with for Ruckus planning and the teams that have been attending our Labview training all summer.

I think for us, it just made sense, we can run the Beta testing, but bring in expertise from all the other teams in the area to help out and assist in problems as welll as taking time to teach as many teams as we can.

The Lucas 20-08-2008 23:58

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Kims Robot (Post 762190)
We will likely be the center team, hosting the controller, but we had plans of having saturdays where other teams could bring their robot in, demos at Ruckus, webcast trainings and phone conferences to involve teams further out, and a lot of documentation on our wiki & forums. We will be inviting all of the teams that want to drive out here to be involved in any/all of the process, but these were just the teams that we have been interacting with for Ruckus planning and the teams that have been attending our Labview training all summer.

I think for us, it just made sense, we can run the Beta testing, but bring in expertise from all the other teams in the area to help out and assist in problems as welll as taking time to teach as many teams as we can.

With that many teams it would be interesting if some of the teams programmed in Labview and others programmed in C++. It would be very difficult for a single team to program the robot in both languages (the dashboard is a different story). Especially when one is a visual language so find & replace can't help. Also, it would also be far too confusing for the students who need to focus on a language to learn for that year. However, with more teams, each team can focus on their language of choice and share the robot. You can even have different programmers reprogram the robot between Labview and C++ without switching cables :cool:

Labview is obviously Rolling Thunder's forte. I've gotten to know SparX programmers enough to know they are C gurus, even diving into the adc library to modify it. They sound like perfect candidates to help develop the open source C++ libraries as a C++ lead team. Your collaboration has the potential to do more "Beta Testing" than any of the other recipients by developing thoroughly in both languages and comparing first hand.

Obviously, the choice between Labview and C++ is the most important decision programming teams face this year. I am not trying to make that decision for anyone, or give anyone more work/confusion. Just a idea I would like all the Beta Testing collaborations to consider.

Good Luck to all teams as we break new ground,
Brian

<SIDE RANT> I don't see the major advantage to installing the cRIO controls system on multiple bots. Without multiple power distro blocks, digital sidecars, etc... it is an intense electrical task to move the cRIO between robots. Even if you build a modular panel, it still is time consuming to switch. IMHO, no matter how many teams you have:
-Use 1 testbed bot
-Load it with sensors and mechanisms
-Maximize precious uptime for your programmers
</SIDE RANT>

hallk 21-08-2008 00:06

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Several of the Milwaukee teams plan to work together (if one of us gets it) but submitted seperately to try to increase our odds.

Akash Rastogi 21-08-2008 00:07

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Speaking of programming in various languages and diversifying the results, is anyone planning on having students programming in Python? Just curious.

Kims Robot 21-08-2008 08:07

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by The Lucas (Post 762349)
Labview is obviously Rolling Thunder's forte. I've gotten to know SparX programmers enough to know they are C gurus, even diving into the adc library to modify it.

Actually our Labview Guru is a Lead Test Engineer here at Harris, and is typically our our Drivetrain Mentor and leads the Strategy Subteam. Our two lead programmers work entirely in C and had their six students writing in C last year. All the work that they have done through the past four years has all been in C, including our Camera work and all of our PIDs. They also helped half our alliance partners program auto modes in Philly, and did some similar work in Atlanta last year. So we have a fair amount of background in C ourselves, but havent yet had the experience of trying to use Labview to program the robot. I expect we would start the port with C code, and then try and figure out how to redo a bunch of it in Labview so we could instruct teams that want to go that route. But yes we are looking forward to working with SparX, XCats and the other teams for their wealth of knowledge as well!

Nate Smith 21-08-2008 09:09

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
Update through the FRC Blog this morning...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill's Blog
Did you apply to be a Beta Test Team for the 2009 FRC Control System? 159 teams did. Their applications were sorted by state, the duplicate entries were removed and everything is now in the hands of the panel of Woodie Flowers Award Winners who will be making the final selections over the next week. Teams should hear by September 2nd if they’ve been chosen and we expect to start shipping supplies to Beta Test teams by September 15th. We are encouraging Beta Test Teams to share their experience with the entire FIRST community so watch for more details after that date. Good luck. I’m looking forward to your feedback.

134 days until Kickoff! See you then.


ATannahill 21-08-2008 09:40

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System
 
we were suppose to hear by september 1st :(


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