Thread: "No Comms"
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Unread 01-03-2009, 14:00
sabruce01 sabruce01 is offline
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Re: "No Comms"

Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur View Post
We did not, but a lot of teams at GSR did. Here's what we did, that may have contributed to our seeming immunity to the comm issues:

1> Mounted the Wi-Fi on the robot away from all high EM fields (motors) and Faraday cages (steel). Orientation does not seem to be an issue but location is important.
2> Kept good care of our ethernet connectors (both on the DS and on the robot). We inspected them for bad spring pins, made sure we inserted the connector straight, and made sure no debris got into them.
3> Grounded the DS chassis as requested by FIRST.
4> always had our DS fully booted before booting the robot.
5> all electronics are mounted on non-conductive surfaces.

After some observations, I believe that #5 above is the culprit for most teams. Our robot (with it's propellers and wheels) generates a tremendus amount of static when on the regolith. We saw at least 2 machines have a 'No Comm' failure after an impact with our robot. My recomendation to all teams is to ensure that the robot chassis is isolated from all electronics.
We did each of these as well....and 5 out of 8 matches we lost coms. for the other 3 matches, we ran so well we gained enough points to be placed in the elimination rounds. We ran 2 very well, then died our first 2 games in the semi. This was the kiss of death for us because in the final round, we didn't even get our auto! Again, I think this is a bigger problem than FIRST wants to admit.
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