[FRC Blog] Radio Silence

[fargus111111111]

I know that we are now beating a dead horse, but maybe if we kill it again someone will listen.
Seriously though, while I'm sure FIRST HQ is already looking at how to solve this problem I will ad my voice to the cry for a faster boot time. Can we go back to the old, I mean REALLY OLD radios that were literally ready in about 10 seconds. These were before WiFi and while I love the benefits that WiFi brings our t-shirt shooter is one of my favorite robots because it has that old IFI system where the robot and driver station are both ready to go in about 20 seconds tops.

We had a situation at Palmetto this year where, in the elims, we were not sure if we would make it onto the field because we had to power up our robot to reset it and due to the long boot time we struggled to get it reset in time. We only made it out in time because the FTA had sympathy for us recognizing that our problem was something we had no control over.

If we had the space to put one I would swap our radio for one of the old D-Links because they boot so much quicker and a fast boot time is so important when you are struggling to make a match in time, but it is also important when you have a bunch of small children who want to see the robot run, but you are losing their attention because the darn thing is taking what seems like 3 years to boot up.

I think now the horse is sufficiently beat.