[Greg McKaskle]

I was CSA at three events this year. I almost always start with the DS logs to see what it is reporting. After being at a few events, I also started checking certain electrical connections for preventative measure.

The logs will show what is happening with electrical and code and will help determine where to start. By far, the most common failure I saw this year was loose electrical connections at the main breaker/switch. The connections were loose, often wobbly, and whenever possible, I would try to show the teams the arc marks. Loose battery terminals were also common. And probably 80% of the PDP fuses were not inserted fully. I would seat one, and have a student seat the other. You could see their look of recognition when they felt it insert.

On the laptop, the firewall is the biggest offender, though there were other odd networking setups we ran across. We saw SW updaters interfere with comms way more often than in previous years.

Coding issues were a mix of uncaught exceptions, deadlocks, and incorrect IP setup.

If you have questions about any of these, please ask.
Greg McKaskle