[FRC Blog] Einstein Report Released

[JamesTerm]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

Yup. There should be a fairly strong Red bias in Elims, especially so in the QFs.

Cool you and qzrrbz know what I'm getting at... I noticed a strong Red bias in my observations of regional elimination matches (Dad1279, qzrrbz is right I was talking about eliminations only) and I believe it to due to how the higher seed is on the red alliance. Now then when I observed the outcome of Archimedes eliminations... I noticed the blue wins as the #2 seed (blue) wins the division. Yeah... may not be significant, but noticeable to me.

Ether: Thanks for this data... it confirms what 1075guy and I have observed in regards to the red bias in elims. From this global scope xls document everything is probably as we'd expect. However, the FRC report itself does show a significant amount of failures for red alliance teams. Also, there was one match in particular that we played where we observed 2 simultaneous red alliance failures that got me thinking about this during the rest of the competition.

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by JamesTerm

Now then when I observed the outcome of Archimedes eliminations... I noticed the blue wins as the #2 seed (blue) wins the division. Yeah... may not be significant, but noticeable to me.

This is simply an artifact of the very high level play at Championship, where the top several (in this case 2) alliances are capable of winning.

Originally Posted by JamesTerm

However, the FRC report itself does show a significant amount of failures for red alliance teams. Also, there was one match in particular that we played where we observed 2 simultaneous red alliance failures that got me thinking about this during the rest of the competition.

The report also says that it believes the bulk of the communications issues experienced during Einstein (other than 118's code/custom electronics issue) are believed to be the result of the Failed Client Authentication exploit. Einstein shouldn't show the red alliance bias that other elimination rounds do. If the targeted teams happened to be red, that's not statistically significant.

Also, in answer to Greg McKaskle's earlier post about some robots DITW with a flashing RSL not being the result of FCA: Here's a likely example. GTRWest (ON2)'s Finals match 2, 1114 dies partway through, with a flashing RSL. It was a Wk5 event. The vulnerability existed then. Probably one of the non-FCA reasons.

The first shot of them dead on camera is when the match clock reads 87 seconds remaining. Immediately before this shot, the red alliance station is shown, their red light lit solid. Match clock 54, the red alliance station is shown again, solid light. Based on my understanding of the failure mode of FCA, a solid alliance wall light is proof of something else being at fault. At match clock 51 of Einstein SF2.2, 2056's alliance wall light is seen flashing.

Knowing how the FCA bug operates, its easy to see how it could be caused accidentally, and I wonder just what percentage of the post-Wk4 comms issues could be attributed to it, even if the person operating the failed client didn't intend or even realize the consequences of their actions (or the automatic actions of their Wifi devices).

[apalrd]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

Knowing how the FCA bug operates, its easy to see how it could be caused accidentally, and I wonder just what percentage of the post-Wk4 comms issues could be attributed to it, even if the person operating the failed client didn't intend or even realize the consequences of their actions (or the automatic actions of their Wifi devices).

I wonder how many times the cause was the team's own laptop (e.g. a programming laptop left on the robot cart). I'm currently very glad we don't use 802.11 directly to our laptops at home (we still use that Linksys AP from the 2009 kit), thinking about this.