pic: FIRST's New field control system

[Rick]

Will the laptop on the left provide real time scoring? Once a tube is scored. Its pretty much scored, sans a spoiler.

[Richard Wallace]

Looks pretty sweet.

[Travis Hoffman]

That's wicked sweet (and I'm not even from New England).

So who was the new vendor for the field controls again? I wonder if they're hiring control engineers?

[JoeXIII'007]

colorful

[Swan217]

I dunno. Looks too simple to me. I don't think people are gonna know what to do when they can't set their watches to the field breaking down.

[BiTurboS4]

I'm not sure what people are going to do this year, i mean, they don't have the scoring system to piss and moan about evidently... So perhaps CD will be a bit closer to people having the "warm and fuzzies"?

[Jeremytice]

That looks sweet!

[Dave Scheck]

Originally Posted by Jeremytice

That looks sweet!

Yeah, but as we all know, looks can be deceiving...I will remain skeptical until week 1 is successfully run without any major or easily testable scoring or control issues.

[BrianBSL]

Originally Posted by Dave Scheck

Yeah, but as we all know, looks can be deceiving...I will remain skeptical until week 1 is successfully run without any major or easily testable scoring or control issues.

Agreed - the previous FIRST scoring company had a pretty neat bouncing logo. (Which tended to make the rankings display freeze as it bounced around the screen). Doesn't mean that the system was any good, and it seems like they spent more time on that than anything else.

[BiTurboS4]

Originally Posted by BrianBSL

Agreed - the previous FIRST scoring company had a pretty neat bouncing logo. (Which tended to make the rankings display freeze as it bounced around the screen). Doesn't mean that the system was any good, and it seems like they spent more time on that than anything else.

Ignorance is bliss...

[BrianBSL]

Originally Posted by BiTurboS4

Ignorance is bliss...

I wasn't making any assumptions about the new system, just saying I'll wait til I see it.

I have what I consider to be a descent bit of experience in creating custom hardware for FIRST scoring and have been involved with multiple projects of complete custom scoring systems, including pit displays, overlays, web output, and custom elimination rounds formats, and certinitally understand the complexity of the system.

If you were referring to ignorance of the old system, I also had quite a bit of experience with the old system and trying to do a custom implementation of the above features to it, which were not included. So you can't call ignorance on that one - it was not a well put together system, and it was obvious that there was much more focus on how "good" the system "looked" rather than how well it functioned. (It also had a quite good looking graphic for the controls)

[BiTurboS4]

Originally Posted by BrianBSL

If you were referring to ignorance of the old system, I also had quite a bit of experience with the old system and trying to do a custom implementation of the above features to it, which were not included.

It did not have functioning pit displays? Didn't output to the web? I must have missed that part...

Oops... wait... found it... http://www2.usfirst.org/2006comp/Events/

Seems to have worked at least a few times.

The custom part was in the fact that you folks wanted to do something different and special for WPI. Thus the modified use of TACops to the current game, along with reverse engineering the scoring system to figure out how to start and stop the field.

Towards the future, it will probably work better this year than the previous 5 or 6 years, but in the end, people will find some fault or issue with the system this year. Just give it time.

On a final note, with all that was said last year, nobody had anything to say to the developers at championship. So complaining on here, doesn't do a whole heck of a lot, but have fun with it.

[Dave Scheck]

Originally Posted by BrianBSL

it was not a well put together system, and it was obvious that there was much more focus on how "good" the system "looked" rather than how well it functioned. (It also had a quite good looking graphic for the controls)

I agree 100%. It is very easy to hide horrible functionality behind something that looks very good. Looking good does not imply anything about the underlying functionality. To go along with that, looking good also implies nothing about the usability of the system.

To those of you that are pursuing a career in software, remember this fiasco ... it teaches an important lesson. When designing a software system, make sure that the functionality is complete and working, then add the touches that will make it look nice. If you design it right, you can decouple the functionality from the front end interface.

Like Brian, I will go into this year and let them prove that their system works, but I am going to keep my expectations high for week 1 as I have previously posted.

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by BrianBSL

Agreed - the previous FIRST scoring company had a pretty neat bouncing logo. (Which tended to make the rankings display freeze as it bounced around the screen). Doesn't mean that the system was any good, and it seems like they spent more time on that than anything else.

I also got a chance to get a close look at the provisional field control/scoring system last weekend (including the architeture behind the pretty screens, and the basic technology that is being used). While admittedly still a work-in-progress, it appears to be a good solid system that will address our needs. One of the biggest differences is the level of professional maturity and experience in the new software team verses the prior provider. These guys seem to actually know what they are doing, and have some real backgrounds in writing complex systems and real-time software. That gives me a much higher level of confidence that we will have a reasonable, robutst, and fully tested field control and scoring system ready for the regional competitions. Only time will tell for sure, but it seems that the current software providers are hatching up a pretty good solution to the problem.

-dave

[Astronouth7303]

Who's doing the new one?