[FRC BLOG] The Great Registration System Crash of 2016

[Taylor]

Put me down for: A Griswoldian cat chewed on a cable.

[Whatever]

Any takers for "Woodie Flowers spilled Mango Juice on the server?"

[Gary Dillard]

Look for metal shavings in a pwm port; that's caused us to crash plenty of times.

[Trying to Help]

Originally Posted by Jardanium

In all seriousness, I personally appreciate the continued transparency initiative from Frank and the rest of FIRST HQ. It's nice to be in the loop about these things!

Yes, thank you Frank for speaking to this directly.

[Conor Ryan]

Originally Posted by Gary Dillard

Look for metal shavings in a pwm port; that's caused us to crash plenty of times.

The barrel plug slipped out of the router when they went over a bump.

[bobbysq]

Originally Posted by Conor Ryan

The barrel plug slipped out of the router when they went over a bump.

*Iowa Regional flashbacks*

I need to post a picture of our router and what the power port looked like by the end of quals at Worlds. It hasn't disconnected since.

and then we forgot to tell the top 8 teams not that we would have been picked anyway

[Foster]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

Having been in situations like this before (in a professional capacity), I can tell you that a 45 minute response time isn't actually that bad. Even if you have everyone needed to analyze the problem standing by, it does take some amount of time to pull the logs, find something relevant in them, and figure out what's going on, or even to figure out if it's a 5 minute or 5 hour fix. Add on top of that having to communicate the details and expectations from the engineers to management, get a decision, and get the communication out.

Exactly. And from experience that 45 minutes flies by in seconds. With something as complex as a multi connected, load balanced, multi system web application with a database, there is a ton of stuff to look at piece by piece.

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

This isn't life or death, waiting a few minutes, or even an hour, isn't going to be the end of the world.

Ummm, the last time I said something like this I got red dots from people saying how critical it was to be able to get into events for their season, so it was pretty close to the end of the world for a high school senior.

I agree it's not the end of the world. And while I feel for the many dozens of you that lost an hour trying to register, FIRST has said they will do a full reset and start over. So all you are out is an hour of time. As I always say "I've wasted far more on far less" (works both for time, money and robot parts, feel free to add it to your list of phrases)

As a per-emptive effort, begin to tamp down your anger now when the FIRST parts purchase website is slow and you can't get the "free" parts you want during build season.

[bdaroz]

So taking this in a *slightly* different direction....

Kit/Kickoff registration is due to open 9/29.

Perhaps event registration should be pushed back behind Kit/Kickoff to try to work out some glitches there first?

Either way, Event + Kit/Kickoff on the same week runs the risk of turning our IT staff very crispy.

[Hallry]

An update has now been posted.

[runneals]

Originally Posted by DaveL

If the issue had something to do with volume, FIRST could have a different day for district teams to register.
FIRST could even separate the districts further, by picking a different day for each district to register.

Originally Posted by Whatever

If there is I want: "A team set up automatic registration routine to make sure they got their first choice and that routine went nuts bringing down the server."

Both of these are very valid ideas that are both worth attempting (although I think I read the second one differently the first time). Why don't they do something like what they do in December with FIRST Choice, where it allows a team to put in events and rank them which they would want 1-5(10). This would allow teams to come up with a list of events that they would want to attend, allow mentors to input them in their free time before the specified date, and then the slotting program be ran at a specified time to slot teams into events based on their choices that they made. For quite a few people, registration is not during their lunch hour so it could be hard for them to do it at work. The "slotting program" could also account for starting at 0 and working it's way up so older teams get first pick, but it could also include some spatial algorithm to allow teams to attend their closest event.
Allowing district teams to register on their own day would offer a way for IT to ensure that their systems would work for regional registration.

Just some random ramblings after reading this

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Whatever

So is there a pool on the reason?

If there is I want: "A team set up automatic registration routine to make sure they got their first choice and that routine went nuts bringing down the server."

Someone unplugged the server so they could charge their smartphone.

[ATannahill]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

Someone unplugged the server so they could charge their smartphoneflying machine.

FTFY

[nuclearnerd]

Originally Posted by runneals

Why don't they do something like what they do in December with FIRST Choice, where it allows a team to put in events and rank them which they would want 1-5(10). This would allow teams to come up with a list of events that they would want to attend, allow mentors to input them in their free time before the specified date, and then the slotting program be ran at a specified time to slot teams into events based on their choices that they made. For quite a few people, registration is not during their lunch hour so it could be hard for them to do it at work. The "slotting program" could also account for starting at 0 and working it's way up so older teams get first pick, but it could also include some spatial algorithm to allow teams to attend their closest event.

+1
https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/s...&postcount=148

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by runneals

Both of these are very valid ideas that are both worth attempting (although I think I read the second one differently the first time). Why don't they do something like what they do in December with FIRST Choice, where it allows a team to put in events and rank them which they would want 1-5(10). This would allow teams to come up with a list of events that they would want to attend, allow mentors to input them in their free time before the specified date, and then the slotting program be ran at a specified time to slot teams into events based on their choices that they made. For quite a few people, registration is not during their lunch hour so it could be hard for them to do it at work. The "slotting program" could also account for starting at 0 and working it's way up so older teams get first pick, but it could also include some spatial algorithm to allow teams to attend their closest event.
Allowing district teams to register on their own day would offer a way for IT to ensure that their systems would work for regional registration.

Just some random ramblings after reading this

I don't like this nearly as much as I like the FIRST Choice system.

If you don't get what you want on FIRST Choice, you don't get some free stuff you weren't totally expecting to get. If a regional is full, I want to know as soon as I sign up for it that I'm not on the confirmed list so I can look at my other options and decide.

How can an algorithm decide if I'd rather be on the waitlist for one event rather than confirmed for an event 7 hours away that I know won't be filled? There's too many human decisions in this process for me to want to automate my decision making in an algorithm.

FIRST should be able to handle a few thousand page requests at once. If they can't, any number of outside firms I'm sure would love to have a contract to do this. This isn't an insurmountable challenge.

[nuclearnerd]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

How can an algorithm decide if I'd rather be on the waitlist for one event rather than confirmed for an event 7 hours away that I know won't be filled? There's too many human decisions in this process for me to want to automate my decision making in an algorithm.

This is the easiest thing in the world to automate:
1) Each team submits priority list for their first event.
2) first event slots are raffled off. Some teams receive their second pick instead of their first
3) In the time between the first event and second event raffles, teams can adjust their priority list for the second event. We give the option to choose to be on a "waiting list" for a filled event.
4) Rinse and repeat

This would be a much more equitable system than "may the fastest clicker win" (or perhaps, may the fastest-coded-registration-bot win).