WiFi in pits
 

Has there been an official ruling whether WiFi will be allowed in the pits?

Re: WiFi in pits
 

I would assume if it is anything like last year you will need to teather the robot for any testing/running of the robot in the pits....

I will find the rule and site it give me a min...


[EDIT] Found it:
Every team should know, understand, and follow
the safety rules.
• Do not run in the venue.
• Wear closed-toed shoes to protect feet and toes.
• Charge batteries in an open, well-ventilated area. Do not charge near an open flame or
near equipment that may produce sparks. Do not use smoking materials in the battery
charging area. Charge in an upright position. It is not safe to charge the SLA battery in
an inverted position. Should your battery leak, ask the Pit Administration Supervisor for
baking soda to absorb the acid.
• Open flames are not allowed in any of the buildings
• Only the drayage company may handle loading robots in and out.
• Robots may be operated via wireless control only on the competition or practice fields.
• Two-way radios are not allowed.
[/EDIT]


hope that helps

Re: WiFi in pits
 

It is in update 12, but I believe he is talking about a wireless network.

Re: WiFi in pits
 

Yes, I'm taking about for purposes other than robot control.

Re: WiFi in pits
 

Update 12 amends the rules to prohibit wireless control on practice fields.

Re: WiFi in pits
 

Wireless computer network adpaters are radios, and therefore I would think they are forbidden.

Re: WiFi in pits
 

They don't exactly specify if it is meant to be just robot communication. Otherwise things like cell phones would be dis-allowed under this rule...

I think it would not be beneficial to disallow wifi for scouting, pit cast etc...

Re: WiFi in pits
 

Depends on how tough they are on the "no radios" rule. If they enforce it thoroughly, there would be no cell phones allowed either.

Re: WiFi in pits
 

I believe that cell phones have been technically banned for a while, but almost never enforced(it's hard to do with all the spectators). Anyway...

Is using wifi illegal? Probably, since in previous years radio devices have not been allowed, and those don't even work on the same protocol as the IFI radio modems.

Will using wifi hurt anything? Probably not. Wifi as a standard was built to coexist peacefully with other wifi networks, cordless phones, ,bluetooth systems,microwave ovens, and anything else that uses that part of the 2.4 and 5 ghz bands(and be default wifi systems will find frequencies not already in use). That's not to say some performance degradation won't occur--but from our experiences testing at a school with high levels of wireless traffic, the biggest source of performance degradation is e-noise and shielding problems from your own robot, and everything else is pretty minor.

Will you get caught using wifi in the pits? It depends. If you're hooked up to a robot, you're basically announcing your ID through your SSID and the destination of packets, o you'll be easy to track down. If you're more covert about it(i.e.using a seperate wireless system), the only way to track you will be to home in on the signal, and even this can be defeated, for example, by hopping SSIDs or having a mobile AP.

Re: WiFi in pits
 

The bizarre thing about this rule to me is that a number of these venues may have one or more wireless networks in place anyway. I know for a fact that the 10,000 Lakes Regional will have the U of M Wireless network accessible as I was using it from the video drop table last year in Williams Arena.

Re: WiFi in pits
 

No wifi allowed.

Re: WiFi in pits
 

Only 1024 Bytes are getting transmitted back and forth by the cRIO and Driver Station, I don't think degration will be any problem with Wireless N.

Last year we got WiFi in the area provided by the arena or some other higher-up being, I hope we will again this year, we used it to help keep our sponsors up-to-date!

~DtD

Re: WiFi in pits
 

In any case, regular Wi-fi works on the 2.4 GHz radio band, while the robot's radios work on the 5 GHz band. Therefore, there should be no problems. (Cell phones work on the 850 / 1900 MHz band so there shouldn't be problems with that either.)

Of course, this is from a practical point of view; I'm not sure about the rules here.

Re: WiFi in pits
 

My take on the intent of the rule prohibiting "wireless" communication is to prevent the Commander from talking to the Outpost Payload Specialist via walkie talkie headset or to prevent communication between the Commander and a scout in the audience. I don't think it's for technical reasons (interference prevention). That's an FCC concern. My take, not official. It would be nice if there were clarification on Q&A.

Re: WiFi in pits
 

Has someone submitted something similar to this on Q&A? This is very important for a stand scouting system my team is working on.

Would it be against the rules to _use_ the 10k Lakes Wi-Fi network for communication?