2010 Lesson Learned: The Negative

[Radical Pi]

Perhaps a DOGMA override switch would work. If there is obviously no hoarding of balls and the system has somehow messed up with scoring (electronic or mechanical) the refs should be able to cancel the DOGMA counter (or any equivalent for future years). It wouldn't totally stop the penalties, but losing 2 or 3 points and then a manual cancelation of DOGMA is much better than a failed system "dogma'ing you to death"

[Kellen Hill]

Training for the camera operators for Championships. Watching the web casts was a pain because the field side camera men would zoom in on the drivers for 5-15 second periods during the match. They would do the same to individual robots during the match as well, so it was hard to have any idea of how the match was going besides watching the real-time scoring.

I understand the people sitting in the stands can see most everything, and the close ups can be nice for them, but for those watching at home, we rarely got to see our teams in action because of all the close ups.

I suggest that a majority of each match be a zoomed out view of the entire field, while a smaller percentage of time is dedicated to zooming in on a particular robot or drive team.

[Radical Pi]

Originally Posted by hill

I suggest that a majority of each match be a zoomed out view of the entire field, while a smaller percentage of time is dedicated to zooming in on a particular robot or drive team.

What about a Picture-in-Picture system for the scoreboard? Almost any decent video mixer should be able to do it (might require a 2nd board though since match video is green-screened onto the score display) The background shows an overview of the entire field, and close-ups are PIP'd into it.

I think this is only needed for Champs (and possibly MSC) since those get the most webcast views since there are so many people who want to go but can't. A regular regional with it's lower budget shouldn't have to go for the extra equipment

[steelerborn]

I agree that a no bonus autonomous period was a big problem. Teams that work hard to write great autonomous code should get some benefit for it. I was upset to see so few autonomous codes being played this year, many robots would stand still then clear their zone.

[ratdude747]

better regional scheduling- usually we have a better turnout at BMR, but since midwest was the same week, it was a hard choice for many teams.

maybe they need a rule that says no two regionals __ miles away can be the same week (michigan districts are an exeption).

also, the bumpers were FAIL. they were too high, which caused many robots to tip way too easy. also, the colors took away from the personality of the robot. also, most robots had numbers not visible form far away, which made scouting a nightmare.

[thefro526]

The rules on minor protrusions were a bit much this year. Next year I believe that minor protrusions from the frame perimeter should be allowed both inside and outside of the bumper zone as long as they do not pose an entanglement hazard.

The automated system that handled dogma was a bit strange. On at least one occasion I saw an alliance get a dogma penalty while there were no balls in the goals or in the alliance station. Perhaps this was due to a careless human player, but regardless, this should not decide a match.

The classmates need a bit more work, and we need to find a supplier for both replacement classmates and batteries. The IO interface is glitchy at best, and the whole USB power issue shouldn't have happened.

The Field Wifi system could use more refinement, though I will say it is at least 10 times better than it was last year.

Regional inspections should be a bit more harsh especially in earlier Regionals. We made it to the Championship with two bolt heads slightly outside of our frame perimeter that weren't caught at either of our earlier Regionals... I'd move to make the rules a bit more lax, or have the inspectors go through the robots a bit more thoroughly.

(I'll probably come up with a few more)

[Tom Bottiglieri]

The safety award.

I feel the original intent of the award has been lost, and now has just become a competition for who can yell "ROBOT!" the loudest while walking through the pits.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Ok, I'll come out and say it. The biggest negative I have for 2010 is... The Control System.

Netbook boot times were slow but tolerable.

Issues with the PSOC boards not working were irritating but there were other options.

The single biggest cause of alarm for me involves the disable switch. They were flimsy, when someone is killing an out of control robot they should NOT have to worry about breaking the disable switch. Additionally, at one point in time we tried to disable the robot... I say tried because it never disabled. The netbook was so slow that it took longer to recognize the disable switch had been pressed than it took for someone to reach in and kill power to the robot. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. No, it isn't a pet peeve. It isn't a bother. It is a safety hazard. When I hit disable there is a reason I hit disable and it $@#$@#$@#$@# better kill that robot.

There are too many parts to this control system. You have a netbook, a router, a wireless bridge, a CRIO, a digital sidecar, a handful of breakout boards, a PD board... when you can't get a speed controller to work what is it? Is it your code? Is it that your comms are down? Is it that your joystick is busted? Is it a breakout board? Is everything getting enough power? Is it your wiring? Is it a bad ESC? Who do I call for support? My question mark key just stopped working... I know FIRST really likes their suppliers, I appreciate everything they do, but we REALLY need to cut the number of points of failure down. Look at the IFI system, single vendor solution. If something broke I knew who to call. Simplifying would cut weight, costs, and energy requirements. Why is the system so complex?

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

The safety award.

I feel the original intent of the award has been lost, and now has just become a competition for who can yell "ROBOT!" the loudest while walking through the pits.

Or waste the most paper putting up flyers... I always wonder, do the teams that put them up take them down too? Do they recycle them? Or waste the most of my time by explaining to me how to use MY safety equipment... or where the fire exits are... I could go on with all the common sense things these teams insisted on wasting my time telling me. Instead of focusing on telling me how to be safe focus on making your team safe and let me worry about my team. Although, having the UL guys there is pretty freaking cool. I loved talking to them at Kettering.

[RoboMom]

Although I have listened to the explanations I still feel there were enormous opportunities lost by the last minute implementation of the Dean's List. Lots of deserving students were left behind. A+ for intent. Failing grade for execution.
That said, congrats to all the students nominated and selected to be honored.

There should be a flood of nominations next year. What a good problem to have.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

The safety award.

I feel the original intent of the award has been lost, and now has just become a competition for who can yell "ROBOT!" the loudest while walking through the pits.

and hang safety poster anywhere and everywhere....

When I think of the Safety Award I think of what team 250 did last year in the Philadelphia regional to win it. They actually took care of a potentially dangerous situation with a leaking battery that was so textbook they should have filmed it so other teams can see how it's done just in case such a situation arises again.

[Vermeulen]

Originally Posted by hill

Training for the camera operators for Championships.

I agree. In one of our CMP quarterfinals matches, the camera operator focused on the far zone, while we scored seven or eight balls in the near zone.
There was also issues with the field video screen, at least the one on Curie. It would occasionally turn off, or turn green, or have green bars all over. It was extremely annoying waiting for the screen to turn on so you could see whether you'd just won or lost the match.

Also, I'd really like to see an award that recognizes scouting in some way, or recognizes an innovation in scouting. Scouting is a huge part of the competition, and it isn't recognized at all.

[Jon Guy]

Originally Posted by zman2865

...we missed our very first match because during our teams inspection the inspector moved our robot while it was off while this doesn't seem like a problem it is because our team decided to use CAN this year and when he moved our robot he sent reverse current into our jaguars thus completely ruining functionality of 3 of our jaguars it was to bad that the only thing the texas instruments guy could do for us was give us three new jaguars(after 30min. of trying to fix them. on top of the at least 1 hour inspection) and after that things just went down hill for our team.

Hi, I'm the TI guy who was in the pits with 2865. We did swap out a bunch of jags, but in the end it was two CAN cables that were open circuit (that we eventually found with a multimeter). I've got the old jags here and we'll be taking a look at them to confirm - but I'm pretty sure they're OK. Certainly moving the robot shouldn't damage the Jaguars - we do some very demanding tests for that. Really sorry to hear though that it didn't work out for 2865.

-- Jon

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

and hang safety poster anywhere and everywhere....

When I think of the Safety Award I think of what team 250 did last year in the Philadelphia regional to win it. They actually took care of a potentially dangerous situation with a leaking battery that was so textbook they should have filmed it so other teams can see how it's done just in case such a situation arises again.

+10 - this award is a pet peeve of mine.

We've now placed 2nd for the safety award 3 times. At the Michigan State Championships, we collected over 50 safety tokens.

Nearly every single one of those were given to us because we:

#1 Had a corner pit at the biggest intersections in the venue
#2 Had it clean and organized

The safety award needs to be a judged award where they discuss aspects of YOUR robot that were unsafe and what you've done to protect yourself. I'd wager we'd see major improvements in gear guarding, chain guarding, labeling, wiring, and many of the other 'major' culprits. For instance, how many teams have a foot-actuated wheel lock to prevent the cart from being moved unintentionally? How about a safety token for each team that shows up with their main breaker and pneumatic valve already pre-labeled?

[billbo911]

Originally Posted by Jon Guy

..... We did swap out a bunch of jags, but in the end it was two CAN cables that were open circuit (that we eventually found with a multimeter)......-- Jon

Finding the root cause is always a really good thing! Without it, there is always a bit of assumption and finger pointing that may or may not be substantiated. It's good to know it wasn't the Jag's.

Whenever you have a "bussed" environment, a failure in the buss can have variety of symptoms, some obvious, some not so obvious.

This also re-enforces the need to have quality cable connections and well built cables. Oh, and BTW, having a decent cable continuity tester is invaluable, and cheap too!

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by efoote868

I didn't like the no-bonus autonomous.

Autonomous was huge this year. What do you mean by "no bonus"?

Things negative about this year:

Suspension probably should have been worth more points if the GDC wanted us to do it. The single extra point it's worth convinces me that they wanted us to analyze and determine that suspension indeed wasn't worth it. It would have been cool to see though.

There simply should not have been so many field connection issues. My team shouldn't have to bring their unplugged router with them to a match in order to prove that the robot wasn't trying to connect to it. (Apparently, despite the custom encryption, field crews at WPI claimed my team's robot was connected to our own router in the pits, which remained unplugged throughout the event) It seemed like every other match there was that one, two, or three robots that took several minutes to get to work, and the fact that more than one match was decided for my team by whether or not field personnel felt like spending the 10 minutes it takes to make a robot work or not is stupid. One match we didn't move. Another match, our partner that we desperately needed to try and upset 1124 in CT quals didn't move and they made them take the robot off the field (side note: i wish they let us move that robot in front of the opponent's goal instead of walking it off). If you're paying ~$500 a match, this kind of thing isn't acceptable.

To drive home my point... it happened on Einstein! 294's sync issues, while it made me hear more of Dave Verbugge's awesome speech, are something that just shouldn't happen.

The Safety Award should be awarded to the safest teams, not the most obnoxious. Just imagine if the GP award was given out the way the Safety award is...

Some method of ensuring judges give each team a minimum amount of time to talk to them would be nice. Say, 10 minutes per team Friday morning? Judges do go by every team's pit, but 90 seconds isn't enough to decide whether or not a team should get an award. Not that I'm bitter...