Classmate Static Discharge Susceptibility

[charrisTTI]

We had two matches at the DC regional where we were unable to drive the robot even though all the communications led indicators were green.

In the first instance the joystick operating the kicking mechanism worked fine, but the joystick controlling the drive motors did nothing. After the match we returned to the pits and connected classmate to robot with a tether. Robot was restarted and driver station software was restarted (exit and relaunch). The system continued to exhibit the above behavior. Complete power down of classmate and restart restored functionality.

In the second instance both joysticks were non functional. In the pits after the match we attempted to exit and relaunch the driver station software, but the dashboard window would not close (something was hung up). We forced the classmate off by holding down the power button and restarted which restored full functionality.

I believe that static discharge to the Classmate/joysticks occured to cause these problems.

To mitigate these problems we:
Added a ground strap to driver station to give good connection to metal frame of field
Restarted classmate from power off state when we entered the queue
Instructed drive team to be sure to touch metal field frame before touching joysticks at start of teleop.

Drive team walking on the carpeted surface while waiting for the match to start and autonomous to finish can generate plenty of static electricity.

Other ideas??? Does this explain any sympotoms which you observerd at your event?