[FTC]: Help with Samantha Wifi Module

[FRC Team CC]

Chief Delphi Forum,

Hello! We are the Charging Champions, an FTC team from SoCal. As a rookie team, we were having trouble configuring the Samantha Wi-Fi Module. It took us a day to connect it to the router, and we are still having trouble with it. The instructions online (provided by FIRST) are fairly vague, and tutorials on YouTube only helped a little.

We are planning to switch meeting places, and have some questions:

• Is there any other easier way to set up Samantha?
• Do you have to have a Cisco or Linksys router?
• How long does it take to set up Samantha?
• How is setting up Wi-Fi at Competition like?
• Any More Tips or Tricks?

Please send a link to any helpful set-up guides.

Regards,

Team Charging Champions

[4946Robotics]

Welcome Team CC,
The Samantha module is a very finicky thing. To accomplish what you want to do to it, you have to do everything in the right order at the right time. To answer your questions;

1.) At the moment, as far as I know, there is no other way to setup the Samantha module
2.) No, but you must know howto setup your router of choice
3.) For one's own network, once you get the process down, 10 minutes. Usually an hour.
4.) I don't know how your competition operates, but the WiFi network for the competition is all setup and the USB stick preloaded. As a part of inspection, the competition officials will load your Samantha with the program.
5.) Almost all of the setup of the Samantha module is documented online, and a few minutes of searching can yield the answer. If you have more specific questions, this forum is a great place.

I wish you luck in your first year!
Robert
Team 4946 Lead Programer

[pyroslev]

Welcome.

When you are still having trouble with it, what is the nature of the trouble? A few details would help but here are some questions.

1. Are you piggy backing on a school network? School network may have some setting in their network blocking a port the Sam needs.
2. How does the wireless spectrum look using a wireless scanning program like InSSIDer? To many networks and/or too much actitivity in the 2.4 Ghz range can put a damper on the party, Thus why Tournament Rule 8 is in place
3. Have you copied all of the information about the wireless network into the network config tool correctly? Settings can easily be off. If there is a webpage authentication page process like some schools use, that's another issues.
4. Remember to the put the .hex file into the drive? Another common mistake made but easily fixed.
5. The flash drive the correct size and a non-U3 style? U3 and other similar style drives where a flash drive has 2 partitions are not advised.
6. Flash drive formatted to Fat32? Another issue but check it.
7. Is the drive reading as a removable external hard drive instead of a removable storage? Once ordered 8 flash drives that were 2GB for our tournaments and the computers read them as hard drives, not removable media. Led to about 20 minutes of head scratching.

As far as routers go, you're better off with their ones on the list. Some routers won't work. TP-Link routers are tricky as snot to get working with one. Asus's game routers are good ones that work although getting them setup initially take a little work due to their menu design.

The process we use at competition is the same as what you use at your school. We set the keys up once the network is up. We plug the flash drive in, hold the red button, power robot on, let it program the radio which is two light rainbows (READ the light codes, they will tell you a lot) then unplug the drive and plug up the NXT.

Feel free to inbox me a message if you need help.

[aklego]

We run an unsupported configuration on our practice field and setup is pretty easy. We simply flash samantha with the SSID and password and connect both the FCS and robot wirelessly to our existing wifi network. Our router is an Apple Airport so linksys/Cisco is unnecessary. Caveat: This is a residential network and this method will likely fail if you are trying to connect to a network that is managed by an IT dept.

[robotsrule]

You should check out RobogamersTV on youtube. They created a whole bunch of videos that helped our team a lot.
https://www.youtube.com/user/robogamersonline


They have one specifically on Samantha, but our team found their other youtube videos really helpful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O02nphornQ

The wiring with anderson poles was really great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1FsxbLcM0w

Hope this helps.