IFI you made it look so easy ... thank you again for the early years! We have now completed the 3rd year of chronic robot bypassing. For those not familiar with the history, here is a self-reflection CD post from March 8th, 2009.
Quote:
Originally posted by Natchez
I was "drug" (okay, not drug ... a gentle pull of the shirt) off the field late Friday afternoon at DC while protesting the starting of a match with two robots that had the dreaded "NO COMM" blinking light.
To fill in the story for everyone, there were several times on Friday, easily more than 10, that Paul started matches with a robot not having COMM. It was a little heart wrenching because every time they started a match with a blinking light, we knew in the stands that the robot had no chance to come to life but the drivers kept hoping and you could see their hearts drop as the match went on. More than once, I heard the field staff blame it on the teams saying, "We can't fix their problems for them." When I did my stay-on-the-field-until-everyone-had-COMM protest, two robots (our robot had COMM), one on each alliance, did not have COMM; they had announced the teams and were just waiting on me to leave the field to start the match. Magically, without any of the team members touching their robot, COMM for both of the robots were established (i.e. it was NOT the teams problem ... it WAS a field problem) and we played the match with 6 live robots. Trust me, if there would have not been this problem all day long, I would have never been smart enough to know what was going on in our match.
Onto what to do - The Lone Star committee has discussed this issue and our MC will not leave the field until all 6 lights are dark or until a somewhat exhaustive effort has been made to correct the NO COMM problem ... just like the old days. We see it as completely wrong to pay $6,000 then get one or two of seven or eight matches taken away because of field problems; that's roughly $800 a match. Not only taken away from the NO COMM team but also from their alliance partners; potentially squelching a chance at a spot in Atlanta (okay, that's a little dramatic but it can have serious consequences). I know, it's not about the matches, it's about coopetition, BUT if we asked teams to solve the same problem and don't bother showing up to an event, I'd guess we'd have about 10 teams 'coopetiting'.
Another thing that we've discussed doing is to have the pits stay open exactly the amount of time that the field runs over on Thursday & Friday. The main reason is that many of our teams only attend one regional and many of our veterans are spending a significant amount of time helping other teams. If we do run over, this will give teams the expected amount of time to help others AND the allotted amount of time to get robots inspected and repaired. Although we think this is a good idea, we must coordinate with the facility and FIRST to make it happen. We're not too worried about volunteers because we would only require the core volunteers to stay longer ... and we're definitely up for the duty if it is good for the teams.
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After three years, we should be discussing the few robot bypasses and communication losses per year, not the hundreds per year we are now discussing,
Lucien