Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisH
If you are at an event get with the FTAA before your match and ask him to pay attention to your robot. He has a display and logs of the communication status between the field, the robot, and the driver station. He can also spot a big drop in battery voltage, which indicates other problems. The logs can be checked but it is easier to just catch stuff as it happens most of the time.
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I could not find this information in any FIRST user guide I'm aware of.
I would guess that the best/most experienced teams already know to do this. Unofficial information flow can sometimes unintentionally give an advantage to those in the know versus those trying to rely on official channels and not be a burden by asking for types of help.
A typical relatively new team sees the FTA as extremely busy with general responsibilities and focused on getting connections from all 6 DS to all 6 robots at the beginning of a match. The FTAs have to choose where to put their focus and if every team that had occasional control problems asked the FTAs to monitor their robot in every match, I think the FTAs would be overwhelmed: (this non-statistically accurate polling points in that direction).
For example, at GSR, when CAN timeouts seemed to percolate up as an issue: teams known to have CAN were informally polled by teams or by the FTAs: not all teams that had CANs were advised of the seemingly common issue in a timely manner- some played through Saturday with CAN while many teams (especially the better informed teams) had switched over to PWM by Friday
Obviously there is a balance of discretion about conclusions, but statistical observations by FTAs should probably be shared with all the teams at the same time, not just all those that ask or are in the know. It's also very clear to me that the FTAs are always trying to be as fair and generous as possible. Now the CAN timeout issue was probably a special case that does not happen very often. Working with the FTAs, the experienced teams form their own informal networks of FMS field issue information.
If several teams make a decision not to use a feature based on that collected information, it would be nice if the FTA broadcasts it in a timely manner.
Can someone post a picture of the real time log an FTA has available to them ?
Does FMS take requests for enhancements? How about logging all the detailed data per unit time and storing by team and match number?
Then each team could request only their data at any point during the competition. Also, with all this data logged, enterprising FTAs could look for issues and publish general results on problems teams are having.
Does the FMS logging have signatures for each of these problems that can be shared with everyone?
1) Radio placement
2) Radio proper cord and strain relief
3) Charged battery
4) shorting motors
5) software errors that cause UserProgram to run too slow (all the time)
6) software errors that cause UserProgram to run too slow (occasionally)
Can the same logging that FMS provides be made available in the driver station or the FMS light code?
Many teams work hard all season for only about 25 minutes of total actual playing time. (Some even less if their robot doesn't make the practice matches on Thursday).
I'm on a mission to reduce control problems for everyone especially the nubies.
A more rigorous (and scientifically accurate) poll at competitions to size the problem is probably the first step.