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Originally Posted by Zach O
If everything I ever built worked perfectly the first time, I'd be one hell of an engineer. The reason problems arise is development environments and production environments differ. FIRST isn't an exception to this.
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Many have noted that the first time they took a look at the field control relative to the game rules, they quickly identified major weaknesses that would rear their ugly heads if left unchecked.
More eyeballs on the game and field design/vetting processes are needed. Perhaps even eyeballs from the *outside* that have not previously been privy to these processes.
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As for software related issues with the FMS, I think FIRST would benefit from getting some more in-house developers to build, debug, and support their software systems.
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It's a pity FIRST hasn't taken such advice in the past to add more internal resources to alleviate "quality control" problems with field design, referee consistency, and the like.
It's not like such things haven't been
suggested before. Wayback machine, engage. Could you imagine the improvements in competition quality that could have been realized had FIRST invested more people and funding into a full blown quality control staff back in the day? If they stopped trying to design and release these games under self-imposed human, time, and monetary resource limits? The teams are the ones who should be operating under such limits in designing their bots. There is no need for the central organization to flog themselves in a similar fashion. Spend some money. Invest. Hire more creative minds to design and build the field hardware and software. Hire more creative minds to create and deploy improved volunteer training for key roles, and supervise and support those roles at competitions - namely, the referees. Make it easier on yourselves up front such that teams reap the benefits during the competitions - let's get it done! I mean a lot of the money FIRST holds in reserve is our fee money, right? Let's spend some more of it in support of the teams paying the fees!
(Wow, I missed the G25 Freightliner. I was even more of a pain in the $@#$@#$@# back then than I am now.)