Things learned from the 2012 regional

[fovea1959]

The CSA is there to help. Use him/her, and advise other teams to do the same. A lot of sophomore teams I talked to over the weekend had no idea that the CSA was available to them....

[rsisk]

The Control System Adviser wears an ORANGE hat and can be found in the pits or near the field at the competition.

[lorem3k]

PLEASE turn off all Wi-Fi networks. There were a ton of comm. issues on-field at GTRW this year because of peoples' networks that they had to go around with a sniffer to find who ran them and get people to shut them down.

[Suitster]

Use tape to secure the ethernet cable to the driver's station so a bumping the laptop won't make you lose connection

[Alexa Stott]

One rule that my team always, always has: Whenever you do ANY sort of work on the robot (particularly anything involving drilling/cutting/whatever), ALWAYS vacuum out the robot. A metal shard in your cRIO is the LAST thing you want.

[lorem3k]

Originally Posted by Alexa Stott

One rule that my team always, always has: Whenever you do ANY sort of work on the robot (particularly anything involving drilling/cutting/whatever), ALWAYS vacuum out the robot. A metal shard in your cRIO is the LAST thing you want.

When we're working in the shop and drilling, grinding, or cutting anything, we grab a fire blanket and cover our electronics with it to prevent shards from getting in