2012 Team Update 4

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by BJC

This update means that it is legal to have stuff hang below the robot because the frame perimeter is not being violated.

What "thing" you make which takes advantage of this is up to you. It could range from zipties hanging in the corners of your chassis that make sure you are touching the key when your robot is mostly off it to sticking something down from the ramp to make it easier to balance (of course it can't end the match touching the ground.)

What a great lead in to Week 3!
Bryan

Reminds us of VEX season when we stick our robot almost off the blue/red tile, only to have a little zip tie touch it.

[Phyrxes]

Originally Posted by waialua359

Reminds us of VEX season when we stick our robot almost off the blue/red tile, only to have a little zip tie touch it.

I am now waiting for the "magical zip tie" to get ruled an illegal traction device...

On a more serious note can we actually get some ruling on rule G33 that actually explains what they really want?

[EricH]

Originally Posted by waialua359

Reminds us of VEX season when we stick our robot almost off the blue/red tile, only to have a little zip tie touch it.

Remember 2005, Glenn? With those loading zones?

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by EricH

Remember 2005, Glenn? With those loading zones?

Not really. All I remember is you guys won that year at CMP against Gila Monsters and Poofs.

[Aren Siekmeier]

I just don't understand why we are using wifi at all. Sure switching to a bigger, more powerful controller is great (despite all the overhead of using an FPGA and not really taking advantage of it), but when all the wireless connections needed are known, specifically, FMS to 6 and only 6 robots, why do we need a protocol that is inherently built for arbitrary connectivity? Isn't this just asking for problems? And it gains us nothing. I think it would make a lot of sense to stick with a proprietary radio connection, and if you must use IP, establish a forward of the wired network run by the FMS over this radio link. I may be oversimplifying things, but the current situation is hardly simple.

So stick with the cRio and fancy shmancy Driver Station laptops, but stick with a wireless connection that works and is not so heavily dependent on a friendly environment.

[theprgramerdude]

Originally Posted by compwiztobe

I just don't understand why we are using wifi at all. Sure switching to a bigger, more powerful controller is great (despite all the overhead of using an FPGA and not really taking advantage of it), but when all the wireless connections needed are known, specifically, FMS to 6 and only 6 robots, why do we need a protocol that is inherently built for arbitrary connectivity? Isn't this just asking for problems? And it gains us nothing. I think it would make a lot of sense to stick with a proprietary radio connection, and if you must use IP, establish a forward of the wired network run by the FMS over this radio link. I may be oversimplifying things, but the current situation is hardly simple.

So stick with the cRio and fancy shmancy Driver Station laptops, but stick with a wireless connection that works and is not so heavily dependent on a friendly environment.

I can't tell if this is a pointless rant or if you're being serious.



What wireless protocol and frequency would you use? 2.4Ghz? 5Ghz? Something other than wi-fi? There isn't much to switch to that isn't regulated.

[Aren Siekmeier]

Originally Posted by theprgramerdude

What wireless protocol and frequency would you use? 2.4Ghz? 5Ghz? Something other than wi-fi? There isn't much to switch to that isn't regulated.

The frequency is only part of the problem. Sure there is a lot of noise at 2.4 GHz because of the prevalence of Wifi, but I feel like most of the problem is the protocol. There are numerous hobby/RC bands just outside of 2.4 GHz that have no trouble maintaining a connection, even with several hundred controller/vehicle pairs in a smallish area, and I feel it's mostly because the nodes know exactly who are they are trying to talk to and don't have to deal with traffic from a gazillion other nodes (or if they do, because it's not fully scalable like IP, it doesn't have to look through and potentially forward every packet coming in, it can just ignore most of them). FIRST itself had a band for its own competition in 2008 and prior. In terms of regulations, for short range broadcasting I'm fairly certain there are a lot of bands where you don't need to tell anyone about what you're doing (I'm talking something like less than a few hundred meters). I'm sure there are some Ham radio buffs around here somewhere who know all about this.