[Thad House]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

I know I am a flame thrower on this topic so I should probably just sit on my hands and watch this thread, but I will say this much, as a fan in the stands at UMass Dartmouth over the weekend, it was galling to watch team after team (and probably more veteran teams than rookies) sit dead on the field for close to a minute while the radio reboots (or reconnects or whatever -- their dead and that orange light isn't flashing so you can be sure that they are not coming back alive for half the match if at all).

I know, I know, I KNOW, it is almost always a power issue for the radio. I hear you, FIRST, but seriously, you need to stop blaming the teams on this matter.

When you run a remote controlled robot tournament, the first and primary contract you make with the participants that you promise them a solid data link to their robot.

I believe that FIRST is failing in this promise.

I argue that we are at the point where we need to either

find an idiot proof solution (that a team can do whatever they want and the radio link stays alive)

or

inspect in the set of behaviors that gets to a solution (e.g. every robot going on the field gets inspected for the proper wiring connections, strain reliefs, etc.).

Blaming teams was never a great plan but this year with such long reconnection times, it is just unsupportable.

Dr. Joe J.

I would LOVE to see FIRST legalize opening up the Radio and soldering a power cable directly to the PCB pins. Not having a solid, locking connector is the biggest issue with the radio, and if teams could solder to create their own locking connector, maybe with a powerpole that would be great.