I've had this idea for a couple years now, but due to a whirlwind of a season last year haven't had the chance to pursue it.
Background:
Each year it seems like an electrical/networking snafu happens to my team. We'll either lose connectivity, a PWM cable will come loose, the a sensor will trigger prematurely, etc, etc, etc. Students, mentors, FTAs, and who knows who else will take a look at the robot and say, "Do this, this, this, aaaannd.... that." After about 10 people come by to help out, the problem seemingly fixes itself. The team is happy. Then someone (usually a freshman) asks, "So what did we fix?" to which the entire team scratches their heads and replies, "aldkjf4Q#@(%asfj[imagine many voices speaking at once here]@#($ASJfdasf4#$1".
I'm sure many others out there know what I'm talking about.
And each year this happens, I say to myself, "I really need to sit down and write an in-depth troubleshooting manual where we could have gone step-by-step through an order of operations, so we could have known exactly what was the problem."
Proposal:
If a magical manual that could solve this issue exists, please post it here and the mods can close this thread. If not...
I've decided to crowd source this thing. Some of the smartest and most experienced FIRSTers are on CD, so this is a great opportunity to create a quality resource everyone can use.
Maybe we divide the manual up into sections:
- Robot won't boot
- Loosing comms.
- Watchdog not fed
- Robot drives, but not how I want it to!
- and more?
Next steps
If you're interested in working on this, or just have any other thoughts about this, reply to this thread. Don't just start posting informal lists of "this is what team so-and-so does", because who ever is going to work on this needs a better way to collaborate than CD - maybe I could set up a wiki on the COMETS'
website or use some free web service. Suggestions are most welcomed.