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Re: Discrepancy at Chesapeake, Israel, Waterloo?
This thread seems to have veered onto a tangent. I can't comment on what occurred at Chesapeake but I wanted to confirm Kyle's statement regarding NASA/VCU.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nukemknight
At VCU, we did everything possible on field to get every team's communication linked. If their radio was unplugged, the field crew plugged it in. If the robot's power needed to by cycled, we did. We made every effort to have every team play in every match (Just ask the 3rd seeded alliance of 612, 2068, and 1908). If there was an issue other than the radio, we bypassed the robot for that match and directed the team first to inspection to have their game adapter checked for proper configuration, and then to the NI representative. After reprogramming, teams that dropped communication randomly during the match had further problems (ask 2108, 1222).
Even after all the problems with unplugged radios and taking the time to fix them, we still finished Friday ahead of schedule!
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The field crew and referees were fantastic at NASA/VCU (well actually pretty much everything was awesome at NASA/VCU except getting beat in the semifinals again). They were helping to fix problems all regional long. When 1908's gaming adapter had to be replaced before the quarterfinals, Kyle patiently confirmed the configuration and assured us that he would do everything possible on the field to ensure that they were working properly. And he did, thanks Kyle! While 1908's robot was immobile for nearly all of QF 4-1, I'm convinced it had nothing to do with the gaming adapter.
In practice at DC, we had discovered that we always had to start the DS first, wait until it finished booting, and only then power on the robot. If we didn't follow the procedure, we would often experience odd robot behavior (sometimes we would be immobile, sometimes only our autonomous would work, sometimes our DS digital IO wouldn't work even though everything else worked fine, etc.) At DC, we could recreate this condition while tethered in the pits so we developed a startup procedure. At NASA/VCU, we continued to follow this procedure and it worked great until Q38 where we were once again immobile during the whole match. Of course everything checked out just find in the pit, but in the debrief with the drive team, the only deviation from the startup procedure that we used in the pits and what was used on the field was that when the DS was powered on for Q38 it was not in a disabled state (??). We tried but couldn't reproduce this failure in the pits, but we subsequently modified our startup procedure to include ensuring that the DS was in a disabled state before powering on the robot. This seemed to eliminate any further odd robot behavior. After QF 4-1, we also made sure 1908 followed our startup procedure and they didn't experience any further odd behavior but the issue could just have been a lose wire.
Thanks so much to the NASA/VCU crew for ensuring that all the teams had the best possible opportunity to shine!
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Dan was here.
2014 VA Semi-Finalist (2363, 1533), Johnson & Johnson Gracious Professionalism Award
2013 Johnson & Johnson Gracious Professionalism Award, Woodie Flowers Finalist - James Gillespie
2012 Chesapeake Finalist (358, 714), Johnson & Johnson Gracious Professionalism Award
2011 VA Semi-Finalist (122, 1111), Johnson & Johnson Gracious Professionalism Award
2010 DC Semi-Finalist (2912, 449), Dean's List Finalist - Chris Dorick, Xerox Creativity Award
2009 VA Semi-Finalist (612, 1908)
2009 DC Semi-Finalist (1712, 176), Imagery Award
2007 CMP Newton Semi-Finalist (68, 111)
2007 VA Rookie All-Star Award, Regional Semi-Finalist (343, 612), Highest Rookie Seed Award (#2), Website Award
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