This year we're using 5 120pixel WS2812 strips on our robot.
Unfortunately by the end of Saturday we were down to one strip. After finally getting time to diagnose yesterday, the reason is likely a fried first LED. After doing a lot of data line shuffling and power system inspection, we pretty much ruled out anything else. A resistance check on the first LEDs gave a clue. A good strip showed around 4Mohm resitance between data in and ground, however on the bad strips it was between 1kohm and 400ohm. It's not 100% obvious yet what the initial cause is, however best speculation is induced voltage due to the relatively high EM environment near the relatively too-long data wires.
To that end we're now rewiring with 150ohm resistors wired directly to the input of the first LED to filter out high voltage - low current transients.
Diversity means diversity in ideas too. Some of the robots from the singapore competition might have employed strategies or ideas that we may not even have come up with in North America. - J Flex 188 [more] 
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