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  #226   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 29-04-2012, 13:11
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Re: Einstein 2012

Considering how much time over on Archimedes they spent, during qualifications, trying to get 1018 up and running (Even going so far as to tether them up to the system for testing(?)), I feel although something to this effect should have been implemented on Einstein.
While it's true that 180-25-16 put up amazing matches, especially with 180 and 25 just clearing balls faster than anything I've ever seen, it would have been nice to see 6v6 matches on Einstein.
Is there anything better they could have done? In retrospect, yes. While thinking on the fly? Probably not. You could see the head FTA running around the Red Alliance side during the matches (Kept track of him via his hat) clearly trying something.

Ironically, Einstein himself had a quote to match this:
Insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result.
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Unread 29-04-2012, 13:55
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Re: Einstein 2012

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Originally Posted by LeelandS View Post
What a friend of mine hypothesized was that the targeting systems and such on the robots sucked up too much bandwidth from the FMS, and the easiest way to relive that pressure was to shut robots off for a while. We experiences a similar problem at Finger Lakes, and every team was asked to lower the Frames per Second of their camera. While I'm not sure if that's what happened, and I know I'm not really well versed in how the FMS operates, it seems like a logical idea, and certainly proves that maybe it wasn't JUST the field that was the problem.
This is not in any way an excuse. The entire system was provided by FIRST, and as far as I know no bandwidth limits or restrictions were given. If FIRST wants to advertise these advanced capabilities, including camera streams, then they need to provide a system that can actually support them.
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Unread 29-04-2012, 14:00
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Re: Einstein 2012

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Originally Posted by martin417 View Post
Since the advent of the CrIO in 2009, we have found that if we turned the robot on in the queue (as directed by the FTA and volunteers), prior to the FMS displaying our team number, we had issues 100% of the time. If we waited until we were on the field with our team number displaying on the FMS, before we turned the bot on, we had no issues. This has caused friction between our drive team and the volunteers and the FTA at every regional, but especially this year at North Carolina. Every year, we confirm the behavior in front of the FTA in a practice match that if we turned on in queue, without our team number displayed on the FMS, we have many problems, camera issues, encoder and / or gyro issues, loss of comms, or extremely long delay in connecting to the field.
We have had this same experience, and on the advise of an FTA started rebooting our robot on the field after others were on. This seemed to help at our second regional event this year, but not at Champs. We had persistent control issues in virtually every match on Curie. Kudos to our incredible driver for scratching and clawing his way to a #4 seed result with only partial control of his machine. We are among many other teams who will wonder what they might have achieved with full control of their robot.
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Unread 29-04-2012, 14:54
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Re: Einstein 2012

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Originally Posted by Dad1279 View Post
Then you have probably never had your robot randomly die, with no chance to debug/repair/fix a problem that may or may not repeat itself, and may be better or worse at a different regional. It has happened to us, our alliance partners, probably 10% of the teams at any given regional, and has determined the outcome of many (if not all) regional events for the last two years.

This should have been addressed sooner (last year), Obviously the problem was acknowledged by adding the data logging this year. The FTA should make debugging info available, and First should release enough info about the FMS to allow us to debug the situation.

Just to put a dollar amount on it, I'd wager the average team spends more than $10,000 per event. 10 matches per event, $1000/match, $3000 per alliance, $6000 per match for 6 robots on the field. If I was paying a vendor $3000/minute for communications & control, I'd think it reasonable to expect 100% communications.
No, I know we, as I'm sure with every team in FIRST, have had our own issues with communication. Now, I'm a little saddened to say they've never influenced the world championship (I wish we've been to the finals of Einstein), but nevertheless. Yeah, it's frustrating to suddenly lose control of your robot and never know what happened or if it will happen again. But I just don't think it's right to seek blood from FIRST because no one has any clue what happened. Now, I'll agree, it seems odd that suddenly teams who, for the most part, experienced minimal connection issues prior suddenly started dying. And yeah, that points to a problem on the FIRST end. But until we actually find out what happened, can we just start throwing accusations are FIRST? Well, apparently we can. Because people are. And that's not what we're supposed to be doing.

FIRST isn't about the matches. I've said it before, I'll say it again: The matches are a means to an end. The matches are played to give kids a median to get inspired. Playing to win is not what FIRST is about. With or without connection issues, the kids on each team engineered great pieces of machinery. Yeah, we didn't get to see them play the matches to the end, uninterrupted. And yeah, it's reasonable to expect full field functionality for the price we pay in registration. And yeah, maybe precautions should have been taken. But precautions for what? We don't know what happened. I doubt most people at FIRST know what happened. So until then, can we really just rage at FIRST and the people who PUT ON ALL THIS TO BEGIN WITH? We're going to start throwing accusations at the people who allow us to do what we do? I just don't understand how we can act as such without even being sure what the problem was.

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Originally Posted by bduddy View Post
This is not in any way an excuse. The entire system was provided by FIRST, and as far as I know no bandwidth limits or restrictions were given. If FIRST wants to advertise these advanced capabilities, including camera streams, then they need to provide a system that can actually support them.
I'm not trying to excuse anything. I'm merely trying provide a scenario in which the FMS wasn't the only thing at fault. Yeah, maybe the field wasn't perfect, but it wasn't like it just randomly decided to start dropping teams at a whim. FIRST tries to provide us with the best experience possible, but of course there are going to be flaws in every system. You could spent a month straight refining a system, but I guarantee someone will find a way to break it. That's the nature of the game. I'm just trying to get people to see that there's no reason to be jumping on FIRST's back because the field MAY not have worked the entire season.
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Unread 29-04-2012, 15:03
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Re: Einstein 2012

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Originally Posted by LeelandS View Post
I feel there is an unnecessary amount of backlash towards FIRST. One of the major selling points of FIRST is that we're every bit as fun and competitive as a sporting event, but we all conduct ourselves in a professional manner. Right now, that's not what I'm seeing. Yes, the complications on Einstein are disappointing. We all want to see the best of the best square off on Einstein and put on some great matches. Yes, I'd like to know what happened. But a lot of people seem to be crucifying FIRST for field issue when no one really knows what happened.
The backlash is very necessary given the circumstances. You see, the problem isn't the existence of field issues; the problem is the pervasiveness of the field issues AND the fact that nobody knows how to solve them.

Consider this: you go to play a match, your autonomous works just fine, then the robot doesn't move for the rest of the match. After the match the FTA tells you that there is a glitch with the firmware on the cRIO and that you need to re-image it, and that will solve the problem. You are angry that you lost a match, but you know exactly how to fix the problem and you know it won't happen again. This scenario does happen in some cases, like the USB hub not plugged in / needs to be unplugged and plugged back in thing that occurs from time to time.

Now let's consider what has also been happening this season: you go to play a match, and for a period of time during the match (either part of teleop, all of teleop, or the entire match) your robot does nothing. After the match, the FTA tells you he has no idea what the problem is but that the problem can't be the field and that it has to be your robot. The FTA does all he can to help you find the issue throughout the competition, but to no avail. You keep losing matches due to some mystery issue that you can't solve and go home with nothing.

Do you see why people are so angry?

If people had answers as to why these comm issues were happening, if people knew how to solve the problem, nobody would be complaining! That's why there isn't a massive thread on CD right now about how FIRST needs to fix the USB hub problem - that's because it's a simple problem that only occurs once, the FTA knows how to diagnose it, and everyone knows how to fix it.

These issues have been extremely widespread this year, and still nobody knows what is going on. That's why it is so infuriating, and that is why FIRST absolutely needs to do something about this.


edit: And in response to LeeLandS above me, part of the reason a lot of people are calling for blood is that FIRST has repeatedly told teams that the problem is with their robots, not with the FMS. If the problem is with the robot, then that suggests that there is something in the control system that teams can fix to ensure their robots work. The fact that FIRST can barely tell us where the problem is, nevermind how to fix it, is pretty scary. It means that you have no idea whether or not you will have control of your robot.

Ultimately, I don't care where the problem is or what causes it, and I don't think a lot of other people do either. FMS, cRio, the D-link, it doesn't matter. I just want to know that if my robot doesn't move somebody is going to be around that knows why and will ensure it doesn't happen again.

Last edited by NickTosta : 29-04-2012 at 15:14.
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Unread 29-04-2012, 15:09
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Re: Einstein 2012

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Originally Posted by NickTosta View Post
Do you see why people are so angry?
Of course I see why people are angry. I'd be furious as heck if it cost my team Einstein. But what I don't agree with it people are taking to a public forum and bashing FIRST's work on the field. People are absolutely entitled to express themselves in a public domain, but it just seems unnecessary to me that people are now hating on FIRST because the field could perform. Do I think there's an issue? Of course. Am I going to take up arms against FIRST? No. If anything, I owe FIRST the benefit of the doubt, at least.
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Unread 29-04-2012, 15:16
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Re: Einstein 2012

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Originally Posted by LeelandS View Post
Of course I see why people are angry. I'd be furious as heck if it cost my team Einstein. But what I don't agree with it people are taking to a public forum and bashing FIRST's work on the field. People are absolutely entitled to express themselves in a public domain, but it just seems unnecessary to me that people are now hating on FIRST because the field could perform. Do I think there's an issue? Of course. Am I going to take up arms against FIRST? No. If anything, I owe FIRST the benefit of the doubt, at least.
Oh, i see what you're saying. Yeah, there's definitely no reason to say that FIRST is terrible or anything like that; in fact, I feel that the 2012 Championship Event went significantly better than championships last year. Having all the fields in the dome and such was fantastic. FIRST definitely did a lot of things right this year. It's just a shame that the comm issues, starting at a regional level and working their way all the way up to Einstein, have to overshadow it all, and now FIRST has to do something about it.

I'd say that if FIRST releases a statement about it within the next few days, and a solution within the next couple months, we can't really complain. I'd say the only scenario in which we can truly start bashing FIRST is if they try to sweep it under the rug.

Last edited by NickTosta : 29-04-2012 at 15:20.
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Unread 29-04-2012, 15:25
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Re: Einstein 2012

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Originally Posted by LeelandS View Post
FIRST isn't about the matches. I've said it before, I'll say it again: The matches are a means to an end. The matches are played to give kids a median to get inspired. Playing to win is not what FIRST is about. With or without connection issues, the kids on each team engineered great pieces of machinery. Yeah, we didn't get to see them play the matches to the end, uninterrupted. And yeah, it's reasonable to expect full field functionality for the price we pay in registration. And yeah, maybe precautions should have been taken. But precautions for what? We don't know what happened. I doubt most people at FIRST know what happened. So until then, can we really just rage at FIRST and the people who PUT ON ALL THIS TO BEGIN WITH? We're going to start throwing accusations at the people who allow us to do what we do? I just don't understand how we can act as such without even being sure what the problem was.
I'll grant you for the sake of argument that the sole and only purpose of the matches and competition are a means to an end to get kids excited about engineering. Given that, these comms issues are a huge problem for FIRST. If a rookie team runs into this problem and has a non-functional robot for an entire regional, how inspired are the kids? How likely are they to come back? If a potential 2013 rookie is watching Einstein, the pinnacle of our sport, and sees several of our greatest teams with broken, non-working robots, isn't that going to dampen their enthusiasm a bit?

To summarize, many of us aren't upset with FIRST because great teams were brought low by this glitch. We're upset because FIRST is shooting itself in the foot and embarrassing itself on a national level with technical problems that someone there should have known about and solved or mitigated by now. We're upset because we care about FIRST's goals, and FIRST is making it harder for us to achieve those goals.
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Unread 29-04-2012, 15:31
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Re: Einstein 2012

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Originally Posted by LeelandS View Post
And yeah, that points to a problem on the FIRST end. But until we actually find out what happened, can we just start throwing accusations are FIRST? Well, apparently we can. Because people are. And that's not what we're supposed to be doing.
I don't think people are directly going after FIRST. We're going after the system FIRST provides. There is a difference. We're saying that the system does not work. Because FIRST provides the system and expects us to work with it, we expect FIRST to fix it, which they haven't exactly done well in the past. They've given it a pretty good shot. This year, it just wasn't good enough.

Quote:
Playing to win is not what FIRST is about. With or without connection issues, the kids on each team engineered great pieces of machinery. Yeah, we didn't get to see them play the matches to the end, uninterrupted. And yeah, it's reasonable to expect full field functionality for the price we pay in registration. And yeah, maybe precautions should have been taken. But precautions for what? We don't know what happened. I doubt most people at FIRST know what happened. So until then, can we really just rage at FIRST and the people who PUT ON ALL THIS TO BEGIN WITH? We're going to start throwing accusations at the people who allow us to do what we do? I just don't understand how we can act as such without even being sure what the problem was.
First, I agree that playing to win is not what FIRST is about. But after that, please replace FIRST with FRC, FIRST Robotics Competition. There is a difference. This is a competition. I don't compete for second place, I play to win. If this is not a competition, then why do we compete at all?

It's reasonable, this being a competition, to expect that anything provided by the competition organizers will meet spec. Try playing a night NFL game without the lights. A hockey game when the ice is very soft. A soccer game when the lines have been worn down by weather/lawnmowing/playing, and not repainted. Because items that FRC either supplied or spec'd failed at a critical time, and nothing appears to have been done, on multiple chances, to fix it we can indeed say that FRC needs to try to fix the field connections, whether on the robot end or the field end. Boy would I like for it to be on the robots--then it means the system works. But doggonit, if a robot is working "perfectly" and the only thing that changes is the field and it doesn't work, then I'll tell you that the robot sure ain't the first place I'm lookin' for that problem's cause!

Quote:
I'm just trying to get people to see that there's no reason to be jumping on FIRST's back because the field MAY not have worked the entire season.
Einstein's entire season was spent in storage. Most of the other fields seemed to have issues that were traceable to one or two units. Einstein should have been the issue-free field because, after all, it didn't get 300 teams trying to connect through it, possibly breaking stuff. Instead, it had 12 teams, who had worked well up until Einstein. This was Einstein's entire season, and it didn't work properly--either that, or the robots, which had connected and had largely problem-free operation the entire season, suddenly and completely died.

For the rest of the statement, I agree that someone will find a way to break any system. But if 1/6, or is it more like 1/3 or 1/2 of the users at a given time the system is supposed to be working are having trouble, that someone is most likely the system itself. Am I saying the FMS is the culprit? No. I'm saying that something in the field is the most likely culprit. Whether it's the FMS or some 25-cent resistor in the boxes or the wireless networks I don't know. But if I'm FRC HQ, I'm going to be going in with as many experts as I can find to solve the problem.
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Unread 29-04-2012, 15:43
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Re: Einstein 2012

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Originally Posted by Ian Curtis View Post

For those of you that were there, did the non-moving robots suck the energy out of the competition?
The energy was definitely sucked right out of the crowd, and that's tough to do at the FIRST Championships. However, the crowd was already being pulled down by the Einstein schedule of events leading up to the first match. The stands were full by 3:00, yet the festivities didn't start until after the scheduled 4:00 time. Then, the pre-match speeches were the lengthiest I've seen in the seven CMP events I've attended. The crowd was pretty well anesthetized when the first match started at (I think) 5:20. Then, the non-moving robots and feeling of indecision on whether to even cheer for the winner put a dagger into the Einstein portion of the event. It was striking to see the speeches and awards continue with virtually no public acknowledgement of what was happening on the field, a real "fiddling while Rome burns" moment. In all, the crowd sat there for four hours to see 20 minutes of robot action (and partial inaction).
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Unread 29-04-2012, 16:04
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Re: Einstein 2012

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Originally Posted by rjbarra View Post
It is time to get CISCO or Juniper as sponsors and put in a bullet proof network. Einstien should have been tested with practice matches. I will be talking with Cisco this week.
The FMS access point is a CISCO product. The Control System advisor that helped us with our one hangup said it was ~$10,000. I don't know the model number. I'm trying to find out, but I have nothing so far. It's about the size of the D-Link, but with 6 antennas sticking out the top.

Edit: the one place I thought the details would be doesn't have it. All the Field setup manual says is "Field Access Point" and "Cisco radio". It does have an image though. Still looking.
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Unread 29-04-2012, 16:26
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Re: Einstein 2012

If it hadn't been for the storm, I would have left the arena long before the final matches were played, along with the 3 other alumni that were with me. We were embarrassed to be apart of the organization while we were there.

All four of us have dealt with the system the past 4 years it's been in use, with myself being a ref the past 3, and being right on the field while things like this happened. We all agreed that the issue had to be the field, it was the only explanation that made sense to us. But here is the real reason we were so upset and disappointed with FIRST/FRC: After replaying the first 2 matches with the same problems occurring, FIRST/FRC refused to verbally acknowledge the problem and let spectators know what is going on. They played right through the problems, and didn't stop when they saw the same problem was happening in subsequent matches. Those of us in the stands saw that something was wrong, and we deserve to know what was going on and what was being done to fix it. Playing it off like there was no problem at all was extremely insulting.

I just hope the winning alliance recognizes that something wasn't quite right, and agree to play at IRI.
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Unread 29-04-2012, 16:37
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Re: Einstein 2012

I'm actually glad this happened on Einstein. Maybe this issue will get the attention it deserves. I feel terrible for all the teams on Einstein that had the problem though. It really is heartbreaking to see big name teams go down for no apparent reason and have the finger pointed at themselves as the problem.

Many teams have been plagued by this issue this year at the regional level. An issue that is mysterious and unknown. No explanation, and FIRST has been just brushing it off as robot problems.

I think it has been pretty well documented here, and by the CTA that the issues do not involve a team's robot, but FIRST has not come out with any official documentation.

Their stance to us about Bayou was that they would check the logs AFTER the Championship... Why the heck would they wait until AFTER the Championship to figure out our problems, or any teams with field communication problems?

This should have been handled when the Regionals were going on to ensure that the issues would not come back.

I expect FIRST to come out with an official statement. I don't honestly care that we didn't work in Bayou. What I do care about is our reputation as a team with a well-built robot that runs every match no matter what. We proved ourselves at the LSR, but Bayou, we couldn't run a single full match, and may times were bypassed and placed as a No-Show robot.

The issue with us was not with the cRIO. Communication & Code lights went red, and we dropped the camera when we dropped communication. If it was the cRIO rebooting, we would still see the camera coming through. So that narrows it down to just one single device not working on our robot. The DLINK router.

What is the DLINK dependent on to run? The 12V-to-5V converter, PDB, main switch, anderson connector, and battery. Those are the failure points for the DLINK dependancies. We ruled that out early in our diagnosis, and I'm pretty sure (actually 100% confident) that the teams that made it to Einstein had good power connections to their DLINK. It would be something if EVERY team on Einstein made it there with bad power going to their DLINK. I'm also confident that the teams on Einstein are established enough to make sure that their connections are good.

That narrows down our problem to the DLINK router itself, and the field.

Here's what I did to our router to try to stimulate our problem. In the pits at Bayou, I pulled our DLINK router off of our robot and slammed, and I mean slammed, slapped, hit, punished, the DLINK router against an aluminum extrusion on our robot. It did not fail a single time. Of course, we were hard wired, but that proved to me that the issue wasn't with the wiring on the DLINK.

So now we have narrowed down our problem to the wireless components of the router, and the field. At Bayou, we were allowed to run our robot wirelessly, on a stand, on the side of the field on Friday night. You can bet we abused our robot trying to get the thing to drop, but we couldn't. It worked PERFECTLY. It had also worked PERFECTLY that same afternoon during lunch time. We also beat the crap out of robot then and didn't lose any packets or drop.

This, to me, proves that it is not a robot issue.

So what was different during those times? The crowd wasn't there. During lunch time, there were only a few people in the stands, and on Friday night, no one was there except us and another team that started experiencing some communication issues.

I honestly think the air is saturated with radio signals. This is how I'm thinking about it. A radio wave is not any different from a light wave, right? Except on a different wavelength, right? You have a few white lights, but you're not worried about the white lights, what you're worried about is the flashing red light. It's easy to follow the red light when there are just a few white lights, but imagine if you have tons of white lights, and not just white lights, blue ones, green dones, ultraviolet ones, every color... Now try to follow the red light you started off with.

It's impossible. And to amuse myself some more... different colored light is just a different wavelength. The channels and frequencies of radio waves of the routers we use, and the cell phones we use are no different. People much smarter than I am have figured out ways to filter out all these other frequencies, but there is a limit to how many radio waves there can be at a single time.

I imagine that there were tons of people in the stands, wrapping around the field, during the Einstein matches. Each person (assumed) is carrying a cell phone. Many of them on laptops. Instead of having a faraday cage where no signals go through, you're concentrating all the signals from every cell phone to the field like a parabolic dish.

Basically, my best guess is that the issues teams are having are interference. Why some teams don't have it, and some teams do is unknown to me. I noticed a big difference, minus the actual ability to connect and remain connected to the field that Friday night at Bayou. The difference was dropped packets. When we were on the field with 5 other robots and the crowd, we had very high packet loss and latency. When no one was there on Friday night, or even the one match we played on Thursday, when no one was there, we had very low packet loss and latency.
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Unread 29-04-2012, 16:48
Steven Donow Steven Donow is offline
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Re: Einstein 2012

Quote:
Originally Posted by RyanN View Post
I honestly think the air is saturated with radio signals. This is how I'm thinking about it. A radio wave is not any different from a light wave, right? Except on a different wavelength, right? You have a few white lights, but you're not worried about the white lights, what you're worried about is the flashing red light. It's easy to follow the red light when there are just a few white lights, but imagine if you have tons of white lights, and not just white lights, blue ones, green dones, ultraviolet ones, every color... Now try to follow the red light you started off with.

It's impossible. And to amuse myself some more... different colored light is just a different wavelength. The channels and frequencies of radio waves of the routers we use, and the cell phones we use are no different. People much smarter than I am have figured out ways to filter out all these other frequencies, but there is a limit to how many radio waves there can be at a single time.

I imagine that there were tons of people in the stands, wrapping around the field, during the Einstein matches. Each person (assumed) is carrying a cell phone. Many of them on laptops. Instead of having a faraday cage where no signals go through, you're concentrating all the signals from every cell phone to the field like a parabolic dish.

Basically, my best guess is that the issues teams are having are interference. Why some teams don't have it, and some teams do is unknown to me. I noticed a big difference, minus the actual ability to connect and remain connected to the field that Friday night at Bayou. The difference was dropped packets. When we were on the field with 5 other robots and the crowd, we had very high packet loss and latency. When no one was there on Friday night, or even the one match we played on Thursday, when no one was there, we had very low packet loss and latency.
Excellent analogy with the light waves, but my question in response to this theory (and I'm nowhere near an expert, or knowledgeable at all in this field, so it's not rhetorical, it's an actual question) is if it happened so strongly at this level on Einstein this year, why has it not happened in the past? Wasn't last year's control/field system as a whole(minus the Kinect) the EXACT same components as this season?
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Unread 29-04-2012, 16:52
sanddrag sanddrag is offline
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Re: Einstein 2012

Quote:
Originally Posted by RyanN View Post
When we were on the field with 5 other robots and the crowd, we had very high packet loss and latency. When no one was there on Friday night, or even the one match we played on Thursday, when no one was there, we had very low packet loss and latency.
I am no expert in radio waves, but I can say we've experienced the same thing. We ran our robot in the school's talent show. We did a trial run with nobody there with great connectivity from probably 70 feet away. In the actual event, we had about 900 students all presumably with cellphones (on), and we were struggling with latency and packet loss even over a 30-foot distance to the robot. There has to be some correlation.

One of the things I want to know is, of all the teams that didn't work at some point on Einstein, what code language were they running?
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