pic: Has anyone seen my teams router?!?!?!?

[Andy Baker]

Originally Posted by Chris_Elston

What was interesting and not mentioned is within our group, we multi-tasked the problem.

Mark was working Plan "A".
Brett was working Plan "B"
Chris and Samir was working Plan "C".
Will was working A,B, and C.

Have you thought outside the box lately? I've made some new friends for life through this weekend's journey. It was a pleasure to work with them all.

Chris Elston

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

Interesting topology

Any comments from Mark Koors about what the full FMS problems/symptoms were?
Such uncertainty makes me want to bring my cardboard box of FMS Lite parts along to our regional as a backup system. Paper team numbers aren't as flashy for spectators though...

What were plans B & C?

This definitely was interesting. I agree with Chris, friends were made this weekend. We went to battle against a bug that is still unknown, and eventually came out of it with some successes.

With only 5 hours of setup time on Friday night, we had a few things to complete Saturday morning. We did not really know the scope of our problem until 9 or 9:30 Saturday morning. Between 7 and 9, most of us were focusing on getting WPA encryption stuff done with the attending robots. Then, we realized that Mark could not get the regular field management system to work. Mark was working on this "plan A": getting the regular field management system to work.

Plan A: Mark thinks that the problem is that the Allen-Bradley controller inside of the maroon Scorpion box was not communicating with the server as it should, and therefore the scoring table indicator light tower did not turn on at all. We still tried to run a match this way, but no robots could be activated. He and Chris tried to debug this for a long time while other plans were being worked.

Plan B: Brett and Samir were trying to get FMS Lite working, beginning at 9:30, when we started realizing that Plan A may not be fixed. Learning FMS Lite on the fly, with limited to no internet connection, with 500 people waiting for you was indeed pressure-packed.

Plan C: Two methods of routing signals to and from the robots were being worked, in order to get FMS Lite to work. We tried one router at first, then 6 routers, then 18. 6 worked, but involved switching out routers for each match. 18 worked better, and that picture at the beginning of this thread shows.

Plan D (A, B, C?): Throughout this whole time, I was claiming that lack of internet connection to the main field system server could be the problem. So, Will was working that issue by using Scott Miller's Verizon card and setting up a bridge from a laptop to the server. Will also helped loads with getting the final 18 routers working in plan C.

Even though this was a crappy situation, with 18 teams waiting for matches to start, I do recall having an interesting conversation with Chris Elston. We both noticed that these three young men (Samir, Brett, Will) and other young FIRSTers were all pitching in ... doing REAL WORK to help this situation become fixed. During this process it didn't really matter who you were, but if you had any know-how regarding networking systems, you jumped in and helped. I really felt helpless, since I know very little about these things.

Around noon, Mike Taylor (the main guy in charge of the event) mentioned to me that teams may want a refund. No one mentioned this to him, but we could tell that teams were frustrated.

Around 12:30, FMS Lite and the router system (Plans B and C) finally got fixed and we began running matches back to back. Relief set in, but we still realized that we had no fair way to run qualifications and rankings. So, a couple of decisions were made:

Mike Taylor and Scott Miller decided that a random draw for alliance captains was a fair as we could get.

Mark Koors and I decided to provide a $300 credit for AndyMark products, available for all 18 attending teams.

I made the $300 credit announcement, claiming that Mark and I are accountable for this system at this event, and we want to express our apology for not getting things working properly. We also realize that these Indiana teams are our teams we depend on the most, and they have been supportive of our company since the beginning of our company. This announcement helped bring relief to the event, and the rest of the day went well.

The Scorpion box is being sent back to FIRST to be checked out. There may be something simple that is unplugged or wiggled free... or it may be something else. We are all smarter now.

Andy B.