[techhelpbb]

I'm happy to see that the electronic power supply issues were considered and annotated. All the testing I did at off season events showed few and far between issues related to the AP/router power supply with some issues with the AP/router power supply (from the battery to the radio power input) taking a bit longer than might be a good idea to reach full output regulation from cold power up (how sensitive the AP/Router is to this is variable and some units might be effected). The time the AP/router supply takes to reach full regulation voltage may leave room for the routers to come up in strange states. This makes sense, all the teams suggesting they fixed their problems when they powered down the AP/router a second time and then back on again after powering up the robot when they initially got on the field (how often it happens though would be quite hard to determine).

The person attempting to connect to the field network is bad news and as long as critical field functions are connected to a public common network FIRST will run this risk. Lucky for everyone this was done line of sight to the effect. Frankly the attack (lack of common sense/failure to communicate intentions) in question could easily have been done any number of clandestine ways that would not have been noticed (I am not going to list them out of concern that someone will try them). Unfortunately it's really easy for someone to create something that will attempt to connect to the field network while aggressively hunting for Internet connections.

I see that they considered the antennas for the field and a few placements of the field equipment. I would have thought they would have tested that further with the robot side equipment power measurements as both sides transmit and receive but apparently that did not happen. Suggestions on how to best optimize the range of the KOP standard robot mounted AP I should hope will find their way into next season.

Overall, I'm satisfied that they've done all they can with what they have as far as a test is concerned. I'm not sure I'm convinced that this one person was the cause of so many headaches however. Einstein was hardly the first time connectivity issues surfaced that were not readily explainable by power supplies issues or programming.

My thanks to FIRST and all those that have worked so hard on trying to make sure this does not happen again.