2008 Bayou Regional

[Dad1279]

Originally Posted by TimeOut

What could go wrong in the field setup for the autonomous to not work?

Or the autonomous on 1 side only?

Does anyone have video or the score from this match?

[ehcualp]

Thanks for all your support guys! I'll pass the world to my team that we are liked! I don't think we are on Nasa's, 118, good side. We took away their win in Texas and now Louisiana.

[Ed Sparks]

Originally Posted by Dad1279

Or the autonomous on 1 side only?
Does anyone have video or the score from this match?

This match will haunt me forever ...........

The field ran so well all weekend. I was helping IFI out at the Bayou regional because with 11 events going on, there were not enough IFI employees to go around. I had been baptized by fire at the now famous Peachtree regional and was praying all weekend that I would not have to go through anything like that again.

Then it happened .........

The #3 alliance never left the gate. I knew all 3 robots had an effective hybrid mode and was surprised it wasn't used (so I thought). After the match was finished, I was immediately confronted by team members and field personnel as to why the hybrid mode didn't run right. The equipment I was monitoring does not log the history of the autonomous or disable flags but it does keep stats about packet loss and drops. The data scanner confirmed that the radio link was good at that time. I also reported that none of the robots on Red left the wall. At that point I backed out of the conversation because, unfortunately, my team was involved and I felt it would be improper to say anything else. The alliance captain appealed to the head ref and she decided to re-play the match.

Each side of the field is controlled independently so it is possible that something like this could happen on one side only. The "Red" controller and "Blue" controller are connected to the common "Field" controller via Ethernet. The "Field" controller at the scoring table sends out commands to the zone controllers on each end. They process these signals and pass them to the IFI Arena controllers (3 on each end) which sends these signals via wireless radio links to & from your 'bot. There's a lot of stuff in those zone controllers that can go wrong but I can't tell you exactly what happened. IFI is only responsible for the radio links. We'll never know.

A similar thing happened at Peachtree except the Field controller lost its connection to the "Red" zone controller and nothing on Red would work. We wound up running the whole elimination tournament with six dongles.

You probably noticed that I decided to monitor the OI's the rest of the tournament to be sure every match had a full 15 second hybrid mode (thanks to the volunteers that helped me). That's why you saw six of us jump out of the end zones at the end of hybrid mode. We never saw this happen again.

It was weird ...... and I truly wished it never happened.

[Dad1279]

Originally Posted by Ed Sparks

This match will haunt me forever ...........
......
It was weird ...... and I truly wished it never happened.

We are ok that it happened, but were told that it was the 70-0 match that was being re-run.... so we left thinking that we lost based on a score difference that was un-obtainable even if the opposing alliance autonomous was run.

Now I see the 70-0 match is posted, not our other match. I do not remember the final score of the match that was replayed.... I just wanted to justify in my mind that a replay was the appropriate remedy.....

Unfortunately our shooter jammed in the beginning of the replay(only time it ever jammed!) so it was the end of the regional for our alliance.

In any event, I am proud of the way my students handled the situation, and learned a valuable lesson in gracious professionalism.

Overall, we had a fantastic time at Bayou, and hope it can be in our schedule for next year. The referees were fair, the penalties were well explained, and the opening ceremonies were second to none!

And if anyone is looking for an unforgettable excursion next year, I highly recommend taking an airboat/swamp/alligator tour.

[Dan Richardson]

Originally Posted by Ed Sparks

This match will haunt me forever ...........

The data scanner confirmed that the radio link was good at that time. I also reported that none of the robots on Red left the wall. At that point I backed out of the conversation because, unfortunately, my team was involved and I felt it would be improper to say anything else. The alliance captain appealed to the head ref and she decided to re-play the match.

I guess I'm confused, keep in mind in my volunteering history, I've only done explaining for what happens never really experienced it. In the past if there were no packets lost then matches haven't been replayed. If there was, then its a sure fire way to know that there was a field issue, or is there something else that people go by? I also thought it was strange to order a replay of match 2 after the play of match 3, they had a lot of time in between there to decide, I thought if a decision had been made it probably should have been made before the start of match 3. That can greatly change a teams strategy, especially if there are mechanical troubles, in relation to timeouts or replacements.

All weekend long we struggled with our autonomous mode not running on the field, we would bench test it tethered and every single time it operated perfectly, on the practice fields in the pits, or waiting for our next matches. Yet it seemed when we make it to the field, occasionally it would run and occasionally it wouldn't. The bot for some reason seemed not to go into autonomous mode on multiple occasions, but when the students asked what happened they were told it was not a field error because there were no packets lost. Why the change, in theory.. or is it just because it affected an entire alliance?

[David Noll]

Great game guys. 555 going down to New Orleans for the Bayou regional was my first time down South and it was the most civil and organized regional we've ever been to. The field glitch was odd and they replayed because their was no way of figuring out why none of our autonomous' ran but something was wrong. 34 and 2080 we played a great game and though we didn't win we certainly had fun. 456 gotta thank you especially for the battery in that last match, you guys saved our lives. Thanks to the teams and the volunteers for showing us a great time and how a regional should be done. Hope to see you guys in Atlanta.

P.S.- 148 you guys play some great defense but go for steel bolts on your bumpers!