2014 Version of FMS Lite?

[JB987]

Does anyone know how to access the 2014 version of FMS lite? I have only been able to find the 2009 version on the FIRST website.There is a decent chance we will need it to run the off season event in China and we would like to try it out prior to our visit.

[Conor Ryan]

I haven't heard of anything in the pipeline but... I would check out this super helpful page:
http://www.team358.org/files/program...olSystem2009-/

[MarkB]

There is no later version since 2009, but there actually is a preliminary 2009 version that is often used.

My son was Chief Engineer for Team 2974 and wrote an open-source version we call O!FMS. We have a full frc field and run off-season scrimmages throughout the year (https://sites.google.com/a/waltonrobotics.org/de/). O!FMS was used successfully at all of our scrimmages this year and was also used successfully by GA FIRST at its annual off-season competition at the World Congress Center in Atlanta (30 teams). We have discussed this with US FIRST and are in the process of sending them a copy to review.

We are eager to share this technology with other operations and would be happy to provide you with the software and documentation, and assist you with testing.

My son will post a reply as well and can pick up on the discussion. Good luck with your event!

[TheBassett]

You can get the official FIRST FMS Lite from the AndyMark website here at the bottom of the page.

The year-to-year DS to Robot and FMS communication doesn't change so the 2009 version will work for you, however, we would really love for you to try our system and to provide feedback to us before it's official release.

We have successfully run over 80 matches with O!FMS (our version of FMS Lite) without a hitch, so we know it's dependable. If you would like to use this please just PM me and I'd be happy to give you a copy and help with any questions you may have! Also, I would be happy to assist you in technical support if you need it!

Thanks and good luck to you!,
Alex

[JB987]

Thanks guys. I will pass offer along to our FTA.

[vinnie]

Originally Posted by TheBassett

If you would like to use this please just PM me and I'd be happy to give you a copy and help with any questions you may have! Also, I would be happy to assist you in technical support if you need it!

Would you consider open-sourcing it and putting it up on GitHub? I'm sure a lot of people would find that helpful/interesting.

[TheBassett]

Originally Posted by vinnie

Would you consider open-sourcing it and putting it up on GitHub? I'm sure a lot of people would find that helpful/interesting.

Funny you mention that - I've been in the process of doing that since around October!
Short story time - after GRITS in October(the Georgia off season event where we used this, without any hitches, I might add) we decided we wanted people to actually be able to read the code before we gave it to them. Then we found out many people don't know what FMS does in general. With that in mind we're working on making a users guide for O!FMS and how to run an event from a technical aspect(such as communication/radios/APs/etc). We'd also be making a training power point so leaders can have an easier time training people. Not only do we want this to be a program that works, we want it to be a whole package that we can, if need be, hand to someone with minimal background on the day of an off season event/scrimmage and have them be able to run the event(although we don't recommend this approach).
Then build season happened. After finals/APs I'll try to finish up everything up(we're pretty close).

TL;DR - We're working on it. Coming soon to GitHubs near you

Alex

[scca229]

Originally Posted by TheBassett

TL;DR - We're working on it. Coming soon to GitHubs near you

Just curious if there has been any additional work on O!FMS. I looked at the website and don't see any time/date stamps to tell. I was really looking forward to this as the beta that I played with was very smooth.

[TheBassett]

Originally Posted by scca229

Just curious if there has been any additional work on O!FMS. I looked at the website and don't see any time/date stamps to tell. I was really looking forward to this as the beta that I played with was very smooth.

Glad to hear it ran smoothly for you!

And the website was definitely our fault...

To answer your question - yes and no. We really were planning on releasing everything soon after my original post, however, that was about the same time FIRST released their *working* version of FMS Lite (which has many more features than the original FMS lite) and 254 released Cheezy Arena - we saw most people flock to those alternatives since ours didn't have things like match scheduling. We had previously been doing a lot of work to make O!FMS the community standard but since there are now so many working alternatives, we've only been updating O!FMS for our own use (i.e. custom hardware, etc) and forgot to upload the other version. We have code that runs match schedules and stores match results, however, it's probably not stable enough to release (except maybe as an alpha).

Our state, Georgia, is moving to districts this coming year so we will have our own set of FIRST field electronics for our offseason events. Due to this, I sadly don't see much future development in store for O!FMS (unless some teams really need it or some developers want a fun project to work on!).

We can probably still throw the stable version (the beta you had) up on github and maybe even include the less stable one with databases, match schedules, and such as a separate branch. Let me know if that's something you (or anybody) thinks people would still be interested in!

[scca229]

Originally Posted by TheBassett

We really were planning on releasing everything soon after my original post, however, that was about the same time FIRST released their *working* version of FMS Lite (which has many more features than the original FMS lite) and 254 released Cheezy Arena - we saw most people flock to those alternatives since ours didn't have things like match scheduling.

...

We can probably still throw the stable version (the beta you had) up on github and maybe even include the less stable one with databases, match schedules, and such as a separate branch. Let me know if that's something you (or anybody) thinks people would still be interested in!

I would still be interested in it. The non match scheduling actually comes in handy if you are running an event that only has say 12-15 teams or so. The match scheduler in Offseason FMS (new FMS Lite name) refuses to make a schedule with that few teams. Tried the CLI offline scheduler that the FMS uses and with changing a LOT of variables, found a way to do it. Just having something without the bells and whistles that has a semblance of control of the bots without running everyone in Practice Mode on the DS (had to do this at an offseason here in Arizona) would be very nice.