Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by orangemoore

If you are going to take this stance I have a question,

How do you plan to prevent your laptop from blue screening assuming your driver station is attached with velcro?


Currently the sentiment from FIRST would indicate to me that if I wrote an autonomous that ran our robot in the alliance wall on purpose there isn't much they would do to stop this.

FIRST has so far seems to have ignored the intent of someone hitting the wall. I'm sure if we blatantly hit the wall in an attempt to disable our opponents people wouldn't be very happy with us.

I'd like to see a change so that all teams shouldn't have to worry about this situation. As said in another thread
Most instances seem to be people not writing a proper autonomous code and ignoring the consequences by hiding behind the team update.

I want to see a better option than the current one.

If your laptop is properly secured there is a higher probability that the opposing robot will break itself then your laptop although it's definitely possible.

Id recommend everyone changing out hard drives in their laptops to ssds. You can get a 60gb model for under $50 and will most likely prevent your laptop from bsoding after impact.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

If your laptop is properly secured there is a higher probability that the opposing robot will break itself then your laptop although it's definitely possible.

Id recommend everyone changing out hard drives in their laptops to ssds. You can get a 60gb model for under $50 and will most likely prevent your laptop from bsoding after impact.

"Our robot catches on fire a lot, and will probably catch other robots on fire as well. We suggest other teams at the event invest in ABC fire extinguishers for their drive teams, just in case you face us...."

[cgmv123]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

"Our robot catches on fire a lot, and will probably catch other robots on fire as well. We suggest other teams at the event invest in ABC fire extinguishers for their drive teams, just in case you face us...."

Right conclusion. Wrong reasoning.

[tgross35]

That sounds like what happened to us two years ago. We had just won a final that would have allowed us to go on to the state-level competition, but it was decided that the match had to be replayed because one of our opponents had gotten a no robot code flag in the DS after teleop started (though their auton functioned normally.) After this, they were allowed to re-upload code, which isn't right imo. When we re-did the match, their robot backed up then drove into our driver station at full power, knocking our Velcroed DS off. Though it was caught by our driver, we disconnected from our robot and lost about 20 seconds getting everything back together, followed by unexplainable periodic disconnecting from our robot for the rest of the match. We lost by a small margin. Needless to say, everyone on our team was furious for various reasons, especially since we checked the logs in our DS and found issues communicating with the FMS server to have caused the disconnecting issue. While I agree that you should expect the DS to come under a certain amount of battering, I feel like something like the events described in auton should at least merit a restart of the match if the DS had been velcored. Since you're only 20 seconds in, there wouldn't be a huge loss of time either.

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by tgross35

While I agree that you should expect the DS to come under a certain amount of battering, I feel like something like the events described in auton should at least merit a restart of the match if the DS had been velcored. Since you're only 20 seconds in, there wouldn't be a huge loss of time either.

I disagree. In past years match cycle times were around 7 minutes on average. (longer this year from what I've heard). Most matches have less than 45 seconds of MC introductions. Therefore, most of the time is spent on moving robots into starting positions, letting them boot up, and resetting the field. When a match gets replayed, even immediatly after a field fault, all of that needs to happen all over again (robots need rebooted, at least it used to be that way, I'm not an FTA) The point is that replays cost events a decent chunk of time, and how far the match had progressed is more or less irrelevant.

The general rule has been that if the issue was on the field's end (or due to a volunteer's error), you are offered a replay due to field fault. If the issue was on your end, no replay. The latter includes issues due to an opposing robot, in which case they get penalized (and carded if warranted), no replay.

So, unless the driver's station shelf collapsed or the velcro ripped free from the shelf, you probably won't get a replay from getting your station slammed in autonomous.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

I'll ditto the call for some intervention here. Velcro will keep a laptop from getting thrown to the ground, but it's entirely possible for a robot to hit the DS wall hard enough that it's equivalent to dropping the laptop on the ground. It seems like G24 (no strategies aimed at damage/disablement) should apply to repeat offenders. If your robot is slamming into the DS wall every match, it should be assumed your strategy is to disable your opponents' robots by damaging or dislodging their operator consoles.

In 2009 our autonomous strategy was to bang into the wall...

..to be fair, there was not really a good autonomous strategy that year.

At the New Jersey Regional we hit the wall (and the new and very fragile and constantly faulting control system) multiple times throughout the event. Eventually someone (might have been us) hit the wall hard enough during an elims match that it knocked out the entire alliance wall power for our opponents. They deservedly earned a replay because a robot caused a field fault and that alliance went on to win the regional (it was the first regional win ever for all three teams and I specifically remember one team's crazy drive coach totally freaking out over it! She's still on that team (: ).

Long story short, I think that in the past robots ramming the opposing alliance station..err..."CASTLE WALL"...has resulted in those robots being penalized and I think that if you have an autonomous mode that is putting the integrity of human bodies and valuable and irreplacable electronics in danger you should be flagged down for it. Sure, you should watch your Operator Console and slap some velcro on the other side, but that's not supposed to enable teams to be overtly reckless for 15 seconds of autonomous control when the recklessness is heavily regulated for the rest of the match.

[evanperryg]

Originally Posted by de_

All laptops are expensive fragile electronics. Velcroing them so they can be smashed about without consequence is ridiculous.

Securing a fragile thing is ridiculous? I find it logical, if anything. If you're still having issues after properly securing your laptop, it's likely your machine is just old or beaten up. Get a business laptop, most have built in accelerometers that put everything into a safe mode when the laptop is falling or experiences a heavy impact. We've run the 2016 DS on an 8 year old laptop with an SSD, and it handles it like a champ. You're not going to get every team in the world to be able to write a decent auto, no matter how hard you try someone is going to go full speed into the wall. Be prepared for the inevitable.

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by de_

Make sure you have read and understood team update 14.

Today our robot was dead during part or all of 6 out of 8 matches even though it was completely mechanically functional. Twice it was caused by opponent teams robot smashing into the our wall in autonomous causing our laptop to blue screen and reboot and the second time crash on the floor and even after a reboot of the laptop, the robot autostart failed...

The advice to secure the driver station is good, and echoes the team update information from FIRST. It means more, however, coming from a team that has experienced the unfortunate consequences, perhaps.

I feel the frustration in having robot malfunctions... been there, done that, not fun.

I note that you were able to link two of the six malfunctions to wall impact, did you figure out what caused the other four?

It would be interesting to see if other teams are experiencing similar problems with their computer hardware... perhaps some laptops are more resistant to impact than others. It may also make sense to design driver stations to provide cushioning for the laptop as well as velcro for securing it. I don't think, however, that FIRST is likely to create a rule preventing wall impacts in auto considering that they have already specifically advised teams to be prepared for heavy wall impacts.

Thank you for warning teams, and I hope you are able to solve the impact issue and figure out whatever problem was causing the majority of your breakdowns. Good luck on Saturday!

Jason

[Jaci]

It seems like a simple fix to this would be to just put a 'lip' on the driver station's bench, so that if it does get hit, the laptop stops at the lip instead of falling off completely.

Velcro is good, yes, but there's not a chance in hell I'm sticking a big piece of velcro to the bottom of my laptop...

[Pretzel]

Originally Posted by Jaci

Velcro is good, yes, but there's not a chance in hell I'm sticking a big piece of velcro to the bottom of my laptop...

If I may ask, why is that? It seems perfectly reasonable as a form of protection for your laptop, and it can be removed after the fact with any remaining residue cleaned up with a little bit of rubbing alcohol (while the computer is powered down, of course).

It seems odd to me that you would have such reservations about protecting what appears to be a personal investment of yours in the form of a laptop you own yourself (rather than a laptop owned by the team).

What my team likes to do is use velcro to secure our laptop to a polycarbonate plate, which is then bolted onto our driver's station, which holds two joysticks and the laptop and has much heavier duty velcro underneath to secure it to the operator's console.

[pilleya]

Originally Posted by Jaci

It seems like a simple fix to this would be to just put a 'lip' on the driver station's bench, so that if it does get hit, the laptop stops at the lip instead of falling off completely.

Velcro is good, yes, but there's not a chance in hell I'm sticking a big piece of velcro to the bottom of my laptop...

It would need to be substantial lip for this to be effective. A 150 pound robot potentially travelling 15+fps can transfer a lot of energy when it impacts something.

Most teams opt to use a driver console, to which the laptop+joysticks etc. are attached, this then has the velcro on the bottom of it. If a driver console was used, you could use another method to attach the laptop to it which would be less likely to leave a sticky residue if this is what your concerned about, or change out the nice laptop for one you don't care about as much.

[AlexanderTheOK]

I find it strange that no one has mentioned the obvious engineering oversight here:

Why is the table that holds expensive electronics connected rigidly to something that will take massive impacts? I feel you could easily design the field so that the driver stations are independent of the wall.

[Jaci]

To reply to both pilleya and Pretzel:

Due to funding constraints (everything purchased has to go through multiple channels of approval), we've opted to use my personal laptop as the Driver Station console. Our only other option is the Classmates provided in the KOP of our Rookie year, and on our DS console, I'd like more than 2 pixels on the screen to work with. If at all possible, I'd prefer to avoid attaching velcro to my personal computer, but I guess that's just me being anal.

Custom driver station consoles are a solution, yes, but for many teams, they are time crunched enough just getting the robot finished before competition, let alone extra parts like a driver station console.

[pilleya]

Originally Posted by Jaci

Custom driver station consoles are a solution, yes, but for many teams, they are time crunched enough just getting the robot finished before competition, let alone extra parts like a driver station console.

An operator console, can be as simple as a piece of plywood, 1 foot wide and 3 feet long it can be purple to go with your teams colours. An operator console can be re-used season after season, and does not have to be built during build. Once you have this, there are ways of attaching the laptop which do not require adhesives.

[Jaci]

Originally Posted by pilleya

An operator console, can be as simple as a piece of plywood, 1 foot wide and 3 feet long it can be purple to go with your teams colours. An operator console can be re-used season after season, and does not have to be built during build. Once you have this, there are ways of attaching the laptop which do not require adhesives.

Any suggestions for attachment? We don't have access to workshops currently, but if we can find a way to transport it, we may be able to come up with something