2017 Team Update 4

[Rangel]

I'm happy they at least made both alliances even in terms of player stations, but I hoped they would switch the picks around or just let the alliance pick what stations they want. Better than nothing I suppose.

[Brian Maher]

I am very happy to see the change with player station assignment. That was the one aspect of this year's game that I was particularly upset with. I agree with Chris: while selecting our own stations would be ideal, this is the next best thing. Thank you, FIRST, for listening to the community's concerns.

Does anyone know what the "FIRST Championship Normalized Slots" refers to in Table 10-11 (the district award allocations)? The Houston-feeding districts have them and they're around one-fifth less than the "FIRST Championship slots".

[waialua359]

I just dont get it. Why cant teams choose which stations they want to be in?
Is it a matter of convenience for Field control to input them way in advance?
How about doing something for once that makes it convenient for teams.
Other events/games in the past during eliminations have allowed teams to choose. Its not like those events were at such an inconvenience to the volunteers.

[EricLeifermann]

Originally Posted by waialua359

I just dont get it. Why cant teams choose which stations they want to be in?
Is it a matter of convenience for Field control to input them way in advance?
How about doing something for once that makes it convenient for teams.
Other events/games in the past during eliminations have allowed teams to choose. Its not like those events were at such an inconvenience to the volunteers.

They had to know a match in advance what defenses and locations this last year, why can't they do the same thing with driver station location?

[GaryVoshol]

Is it just me, or are the Min and Max headers reversed in Table 10-11?

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

..it's going to be rough for teams whose winch or chock is right at the top of their allowable volume.

Originally Posted by Hitchhiker 42

But... 3.25" of bumpers stick out of the winch basically* no matter what. I don't think this was a large problem to start with.

*Assuming you don't actuate your winch out over the bumper and also the winch is situated a tad higher than your bumpers.

As I read the rules, the bumpers weren't allowed to be within 17" of the top of your allowable volume (or 29" if you elect the tall configuration). But yes, this would also apply to the other boundaries of the volume.

Winch near the bumpers...oh, yes, we did consider the "antichrist option" early in design, but decided to make our lift in a relatively upright orientation to simplify removal of our ROPE from the DAVIT. Fortunately the fingers on the DAVIT are within reach of some members of our team.

[rich2202]

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

They had to know a match in advance what defenses and locations this last year, why can't they do the same thing with driver station location?

Defenses was merely displaying what was in a particular slot.

FMS is designed to expect a team in a certain location. At a minimum, the ethernet port is programmed for that team number.

I can appreciate that it would be "nice" to let a team pick their spot. I'm guessing to minimize problems, they keep positions hard coded.

FWIW: I don't think there is a requirement that the driver stay in their team's position. If you bring a long enough ethernet cord, you can be in whatever position the teams agree.

[Kpchem]

Originally Posted by rich2202

FWIW: I don't think there is a requirement that the driver stay in their team's position. If you bring a long enough ethernet cord, you can be in whatever position the teams agree.

C12 prevents teams from doing this.

Originally Posted by 2017 Manual Section 6

C12. Plug in to/be in your PLAYER STATION. The OPERATOR CONSOLE must be used in the PLAYER STATION to which the Team is assigned, as indicated on the Team sign.

The blue box below goes on to explain that the intent is to prevent long tethers that could become tripping hazards, and "if an operator is located more than approximately 1⁄2 PLAYER STATION width away from their own PLAYER STATION, that would be considered a violation of C12."

[EricLeifermann]

Originally Posted by rich2202

Defenses was merely displaying what was in a particular slot.

FMS is designed to expect a team in a certain location. At a minimum, the ethernet port is programmed for that team number.

I can appreciate that it would be "nice" to let a team pick their spot. I'm guessing to minimize problems, they keep positions hard coded.

FWIW: I don't think there is a requirement that the driver stay in their team's position. If you bring a long enough ethernet cord, you can be in whatever position the teams agree.

I'm not saying that you should be able to pick for all of quals, but elims there is plenty of time to be able to pick where you want to go. They did it in 2015 why can't they do it now?

[jgerstein]

Originally Posted by Brian Maher

Does anyone know what the "FIRST Championship Normalized Slots" refers to in Table 10-11 (the district award allocations)? The Houston-feeding districts have them and they're around one-fifth less than the "FIRST Championship slots".

The "Championship Normalized Slots" are how many slots those district would be allotted if they were feeding into St. Louis rather than Houston. According to the explanation below Table 10-11, they are basing award ratios on the normalized slots rather than the actual slots to avoid skewing award ratios.

[Hallry]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

As for playoff player station assignments, this system seems okay. I do wish you were allowed to choose which player station you could go to, but I understand why that isn't done, and as long as that isn't a thing, this is the best we've got.

Originally Posted by Rangel

I'm happy they at least made both alliances even in terms of player stations, but I hoped they would switch the picks around or just let the alliance pick what stations they want. Better than nothing I suppose.

Originally Posted by waialua359

I just dont get it. Why cant teams choose which stations they want to be in?
Is it a matter of convenience for Field control to input them way in advance?
How about doing something for once that makes it convenient for teams.
Other events/games in the past during eliminations have allowed teams to choose. Its not like those events were at such an inconvenience to the volunteers.

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

They had to know a match in advance what defenses and locations this last year, why can't they do the same thing with driver station location?

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

I'm not saying that you should be able to pick for all of quals, but elims there is plenty of time to be able to pick where you want to go. They did it in 2015 why can't they do it now?

For what it's worth, Alliances are still able to select their own Player Stations (and obviously, which 3 of the 4 robots are playing) at the FIRST Championship as per Section 10.11.1.

[tickspe15]

Originally Posted by Hallry

For what it's worth, Alliances are still able to select their own Player Stations (and obviously, which 3 of the 4 robots are playing) at the FIRST Championships as per Section 10.11.1.

Fixed

[MasterMentor]

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

I'm not saying that you should be able to pick for all of quals, but elims there is plenty of time to be able to pick where you want to go. They did it in 2015 why can't they do it now?

Actually, no, they didn't do that in 2015. They have NEVER* allowed teams to choose what player stations they wanted to be in (my memory only goes back as far as 2009, which I think was the first year of the non-IFI control system genesis - it may be possible they allowed it prior to 2009, but that was a different system right?). I believe 2015 was the first game where a rule similar to C12 was introduced, because teams wanted to "migrate" to other player stations (I know mine did for sure!).

* - The only time teams have ever been able to choose what player station they are in is during FIRST Championships. However, never during normal Regional, District, nor District Championship tournaments. I asked one of the Championship Scorekeepers once why they didn't allow station selection except at Championships, and they said it was because of the 4-team alliances or something to that effect. I think I'd be cool with 4-team alliances at a Regional tournament if that was the tradeoff!

-George

[EricH]

Originally Posted by MasterMentor

Actually, no, they didn't do that in 2015. They have NEVER* allowed teams to choose what player stations they wanted to be in (my memory only goes back as far as 2009, which I think was the first year of the non-IFI control system genesis - it may be possible they allowed it prior to 2009, but that was a different system right?). I believe 2015 was the first game where a rule similar to C12 was introduced, because teams wanted to "migrate" to other player stations (I know mine did for sure!).

I remember that 2015 had a rule similar to C12 at one point, and it wasn't called when it could have been.

I also want to say that the rule was changed to allow shuffling team stations around that year, but don't recall for sure.

[rspurlin]

Longtime scorekeeper here. As soon as the previous match is scored, we begin the setup for the next match. The major part of that is setting up the field access point to respond only to the six teams coming onto the field and to establish a virtual private network for each team. This is why you have no comms if you're in the wrong station. Station assignments also allow the FTA to see exactly what is going on with your team linking to the field by looking at the stack lights.

Schedule generation attempts to make a qualification schedule that maximizes the variety of partners and opponents, maximizes time between matches, balances appearance on red/blue and in each station, among other things. Giving teams the opportunity to alter this for every match not only makes my job much harder, but would likely slow down the process, resulting in fewer matches per team. There also seems to be an opportunity for better teams to strongarm a weaker team into an inferior position, which wouldn't be GP.

Many offseason events don't use a full FMS and instead set up shared networks with no VPN. In those events it wouldn't matter which station you're in.