[kjohnson]

Originally Posted by Dmentor

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.
...
Thanks so much to the NASA/VCU crew for ensuring that all the teams had the best possible opportunity to shine!

Thanks! I'm glad your alliance was able to advance through 1908's problems. They linked with the field during QF4.1 but did not move. They reprogrammed before QF4.2 and never had another issue.

Originally Posted by ColleenShaver

I do think the efforts of the NASA/VCU field crew should be applauded! It's great that they were able to support so many teams and still run a timely event.

Thanks! We were just as surprised as anyone else that we were able to finish on time. At some points, we were even ahead of schedule. For most matches, the field was reset and robots in place before Jeff began announcing teams.

Originally Posted by bandducky511

Good job on making it to semi-finals! I remember going against your bot in Q38. It started during autonomous at the outpost and did move; however, it stopped moving after our alliance partner collided with your bot. There was a huge collision with 3-4 robots around that outpost that match (if I remember correctly). The immobile part may have been caused by the collisions :S
Also, the DS does not need to be enabled or disabled. However, before you turn the robot on make sure it is disabled or enabled and on tele-op. The field judges are supposed to automatically turn each driver station on disable and autonomous at the beginning of each match (from what I have seen)

Yes, that collision caused the communication issue. It showed immediately on the Field Monitor after the collision.

As for enable/disable, until the scores from the previous match are committed, the next matches driver stations are enabled. When the team numbers change to the current match, the DS is disabled. There were a few instances where some robots on the field had already booted and their motors jumped for a split second when the field switched matches.

Originally Posted by pitzoid

WGA is ~15 seconds to boot
DS is 10 to 20 seconds depending on how fast it identifies its USB devices
cRio can boot in as fast as 10 seconds (what I've seen in the shop, mine don't have a bunch of user code in them though)

I've seen WGAs link with the field AP in <2 seconds, and then I've seen them take as long as 20 seconds in the field, and I've seen some that don't link at all

At VCU the DS took typically less than 20 seconds to boot. As long as the DS has booted, it took about 30-40 seconds for each robot to sync with the field (from power on, to confirmed communication).