Five Person Drive team in 2017

[Jpatterson1710]

Originally Posted by Irwin772

I don't believe that is true, there are many times it is something with the team( not updating firmware and such), but as a scorekeeper I have seen what we called a "Christmas tree", where everyone starts to have issues randomly through matches. This issue was resolved by the next day for that regional, but there are still random issues that persist sometimes.

This is not to say that the system would be unable to handle 6 additional feeds, that is totally doable. Another way of doing this would be to bring back the non-human player of 2008 where they could control their robot through the IR sensor. Would be another way of accomplishing that goal.

Yeah, the "Christmas Tree" is primarily why FIRST has updated the radio. The old D-Link radios failed to implement proper WiFi protocols, nor could they enforce bandwidth caps. Basically, WiFi protocol says that when packets are being dropped, the rate at which those packets are sent must be reduced, and the rate at which they are backed off must be random. The issue with the D-Link was that the rate at which they backed off was hard-coded as a set number. Therefore when the network got crowded and packets were dropped, all the radios on the field backed off and then tried to re-send packets at the same time. If you can imagine, that is exactly why the rate should be random, and thats why we saw the "Christmas Tree". Among other things, one of the major improvements with our new radio is that it does in fact back off at a random rate, following proper WiFi protocol. That said, the "Christmas Tree" is not impossible with the new radios, but it would be a very surprising. I personally don't know of a single occurrence it last year, and adding six feeds really shouldn't have much effect on the likely hood of a "Christmas Tree" type of occurrence.

Had we not updated radios, I would totally agree with you. Six additional feeds with the D-Link would absolutely increase the occurrence of the "Christmas Tree" among other things.

If anyone has more questions about what the "Christmas Tree" is(symptoms, causes, fixes) or if you'd like to hear why the recent changes are fixing this issue, feel free to PM me or quote/reply. I'd be happy to answer your questions!

[fargus111111111]

Crazy(ish) idea, someone already mentioned the extra button being for someone to control some sort of train minibot, if this is the case the train could be controlled directly through the rails and additional functions on board the train could also be controlled if they used a dcc (digital command control) system. Teams could build their own "train" with a specific on-board controller which is programmed to respond to their team number and the additional team member could operate that from a dedicated station, not necessarily directly behind the glass, similar placement to the kinect stations. Many teams probably wouldn't build one of these trains and therefore I think it would almost have to be something like 1 train per alliance and the whole alliance gets the points it scores with regard to ranking. I have not really thought through the scoring and all that and the logistics (events need lots of track cleaner on hand) but I like trains and this is just one way that I think would be really cool to include them into an FRC game. This gives a truly teleoperated minibot without taking up more bandwidth, and dcc systems are incredibly reliable in connecting, as long as the tracks are clean. Also, the trains could pull their power from the rails so they would not need additional batteries on board and at the end of the match the fms could simply cut power to them. As far as the extra people, if only one of these is used per alliance, possibly each team gets an additional button, but to use it they must have their train in hand as they enter the field.

Just another thoroughly crazy idea, but hey, it sounds fun, at least on paper.