Internet at Competitions

[rsegrest]

Originally Posted by TheCascadeKid

What did happen to the guy/what was really happening? The Einstein report was rather vague with that part (perhaps for good reason, but I'm still wondering).

If you read the email that accompanied the Einstien report vague was the last thing it was. Here is the gist of what happened and the results:

What happened:
Random guy found a way to use Wifi to cause interference in robot communication that affected the outcome of Einstien matches

Consequences:
Random guy is in no way allowed any further contact with, interaction with, or participation in FIRST in any capacity. Essentially he is banned from FIRST for life.

Excerpt from the letter from Jon Dudas sent to all teams...

"Additionally, Einstein match play suffered from an intentional act of interference. The person who engaged in this interference was associated with an FRC team, but not with any team on the winning alliance. For personal reasons, this individual opted to resign. In addition, FIRST has prohibited the individual from participating in any future FIRST event as a coach, mentor, volunteer or in any other capacity. This is the penalty associated with an intentional act of interference."

http://www.usfirst.org/node/2426

And this is one of the reasons why Wifi is not allowed at events in any capacity.

To the OP:
I agree with the other posters on most of their points. The volunteers at all events are just that, volunteers. They catch a lot of grief over match play, things not working exactly the way they worked for teams at home, the occasional FRC participant who doesn't want to follow the rules, setup, breakdown, etc. etc.

While the majority of the time their experiences are positive I can tell you that there are individuals who are actively rude and ugly to the volunteers (adults and students alike). I speak from experience because my students have participated as volunteers and I have witnessed some unfortunate incidents.

If you want to do this use your 3/4G devices all day long (we use laptops and USB drives for simplicity) but please do not expect/ask the volunteers for another thing to setup, configure, troubleshoot for every team that is having problems, and then breakdown. Their jobs and time are already busy enough with all the other duties they are asked to perform. If you think you are tired at the end of an event put yourself in their shoes, they are the first in the doors in the morning, the last out the doors at night, and spend several days before teams arrive getting everything ready for us and then cleaning up after we leave.

Thank you to all those who have volunteered at an event, you guys do a great job!