[terbos]

Hi,

I ran a pre-bag scrimmage for 19 teams using FMS Light last Sunday. This was my 15th off-season event, so I'm getting pretty good at the overall logistics of running the field. But there's one part of running an event that always causes trouble:

Robot Radio Configuration Hell

When teams are working at home, they configure their robot radios per the book guidelines. And this year, there's even a configuration tool that makes it much easier. But if the team wants to participate in an off-season event using FMS Light, I find they run into these problems:

1) They don't know how to manually program their radio. This was a big enough problem before, but with the introduction of the auto-config tool, they're totally insulated from learning anything about logging into the radio.
2) They figure out how to login to the radio, but miss a critical step and need help troubleshooting, which frequently takes longer than if an expert just did it from scratch.
3) They get their SSID changed to match the field, but leave their radio in AP mode (or put it back there during the event). This is a killer. A room full of APs with the same SSID means nobody can reliably connect to the field. This leads to endless frustration.

So what I'm wondering is: How do other off-season events handle this?
- Do you have a designated radio programming station that all teams must visit before going on the field? One or two "experts" are responsible for getting all the configs correct?
- Do you set the radio into bridge mode and put tape on it?
- Has someone developed an auto-config tool similar to the one for working at home, but sets up the radio correctly for FMS Light?
- Any other solutions?

Thanks,
Terry