Field Fault

[Wildcat]

What constitutes this? Our entire alliance just stopped moving completely, and one team started moving without any control. The officials said it wasn't a field fault because "the computers said everything was working" is this the correct call?

[ISITME_YESITIS]

It sounds like it could be two things: either it was a field fault or it could be ghosts trying to have some fun too. But i would go with the feild fault.

[Rion Atkinson]

It's possible it was a field fault, but it's also likely that all of your robots are messed up. I know it's not what you want to hear. But never rule out the unlikely.

[kmitchell]

If possible, Please provide a much more detailed sequence of events along with time estimates between the events.

[Wildcat]

Would post vid, but max zip size is 5mb and ours is 218.

We start autonomous, our arm tries to launch prematurely (held back by cord). A few others move, nothing noticeable. Teleoperatated: We are stuck, controls not responding. Our mid-field partner also doesn't move and our far field one seems to move fine. About 30-40 seconds in, the mid-field partner moves forward and stops. At the same time, our far field partner tried to cross the bump and suddenly stopped. The mid-field partner starts moving back and forth, turning sometimes. About a minute in, our partners seem to regain control and both move now under control. 10-15 seconds later, mid stops again and far flips from bump crossing attempt (not a field fault there). Last few seconds, mid moves back and forth again and we have been stuck the whole match (I believe we dissabled our bot about halfway in the match). Match ends.

[/*P4bl0*/]

ok if you know your robot works and for some reson non of yall are working its a field fault because they may have all the computers connected and working but do they really have the robotos connected ? thats the reall question

[Alan Anderson]

Weird control symptoms like that can be caused by the Driver Station getting confused about which joystick is which. That shouldn't happen, but it might conceivably occur if your USB hub loses power. If it happens again, you might try pressing F1 on the Driver Station to force it to refresh the joystick connections.

Some teams have reported totally losing connection to their Cypress board if their Driver Station goes to sleep at the wrong time before they've connected to the field Ethernet. Maybe you're seeing something similar.

[rspurlin]

perhaps this is too late to help your team but it may be of use to other teams with matches yet to play . . .

You begin by saying:
[blockquote]We start autonomous, our arm tries to launch prematurely[/blockquote]
I'm assuming that the arm was not supposed to move, yet did. There is nothing that I know of in the Field Management System that could cause such an error. It would be much more likely that your bot has a programming or wiring error.

The FMS basically acts as a wireless tether between your robot and your classmate/driver station, passing TCP/IP packets between the two. While doing so, it copies some basic data from the packets and writes them into a log every 100 ms or so. The scorekeeper can review these logs afterward to determine if your classmate ever lost communications with your robot. Other pertinent information is also recorded.

I'm also assuming that the scorekeeper or FTA looked at these logs before telling your team that nothing unusual was recorded there. If that is the case, you can pretty much rule out a field wiring issue or radio issue. Such things would usually cause problems for all teams on an alliance, or all teams, simultaneously. Even so, the scorekeeper would probably have noticed before you did.

Is there any evidence that other teams in the same station had problems? Did your team have any problems in any other match? Did your team change something since your last successful run? Is it possible your team had its wireless access point on in the pits or stands?

Good luck at tracking down the source of your problems.