Looking for FTAs, FTAAs and Scorekeepers to test an app

[Doug Frisk]

I've been working on my own version of the Field Monitor for a while and have it in a position that some folks might want to try it.

It's a Windows 10 app, so you need a Windows 10 PC, Tablet or phone. Or a HoloLens, but I suspect I'm about the only one who has one. I didn't select the Xbox option because I don't have an Xbox to test and I didn't see anyone hauling an Xbox to an event just to watch robot stats, but if someone does want to I'd be happy to flip that bit. Perhaps more interesting, it should run on Win10 IoT and at some point I'll be trying it on my Raspberry Pi 3. That I could see as a useful thing given that a Raspberry Pi and monitor is a lot less expensive than any laptop.

Beyond something to run the app on, you also need an FMS and some robots. Though if you scroll to the bottom of the hamburger menu you can watch recorded data from last spring. It's from an actual match, but it's been manually edited to generate any possible field notification message.

Why would you be use this instead of a Panasonic Toughbook running Firefox and a web app you ask? Well, this version graphs voltage, trip time and radio signal strength so you can quickly see those stats during a match. More interesting is the notification function. When the app sees an Ethernet, DS IP, Radio, RIO or code error for a particular robot it will pop up a notification. If you happen to have a Microsoft Band, those notifications can pop up on your wrist as well.

It should be able to save you several seconds in identifying issues during a match because it actively notifies you of an issue rather than relying on you noticing a robot stopping on field or glancing at the Field Monitor to see the issue.

Some things to know.

• This is not sanctioned by FIRST. It establishes the same passive read only connection the Field Monitor web app does so it shouldn't adversely impact the FMS or field network and in testing I've seen no problems. Even so, I'd limit the use to off season events for the moment.
• Settings do not persist, Each time you start the app you'll have to set the FMS IP, unless it happens to be the same as my own off season FMS.
• While there is a button labeled "Add FTA note" on the pop up notifications it does not actually do anything at this point.
• A pre-start clears all data. So you can only see the graphs until the next match is pre-started.
• You can't disable pre-start notifications. That's a bug that was fixed right after I submitted it to the store.

[Doug Frisk]

Oh, and after all that verbiage I never actually posted the link to the app.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/stor...r/9nblggh537r0

And the video of it running on a HoloLens just because I can.

https://1drv.ms/v/s!ArciGmk3R-5GjLQ0ILHuTQ0V1wFF7g

[Poseidon5817]

You should've had that team reset their robot code!

Seriously, that looks amazing. I saw a few funny looks though, especially when you went behind the glass.

[frcguy]

Looks awesome! Love the notifications and all that stuff, seems like it's got some really neat features.

[scca229]

I'll be testing the app out this weekend at Arizona State Champs. Just got my Band 2 back from Microsoft, so looking forward to the notifications on my wrist.

[Rombus]

Its very interesting! any chance of you open sourcing the code? I don't have any windows 10 portable devices, but would love to take a shot at porting it over to iOS.

[Doug Frisk]

I've just uploaded an improved version of this app to the store. It should show up late Tuesday or Wednesday in the store.

You ever make one of those errors that you know in hindsight you shouldn't have?

As it turns out, one of the component packages (the asp.net SignalR client) in the app was updated a couple of months ago to resolve a problem introduced in a windows update last summer but I'd never updated to the new version of the package because I wasn't having issues.

I never updated the package because the failure mode only occurred in release rather than debug mode. So while the app ran fine for me, as soon as I uploaded it, it failed silently for anyone who actually tried to connect to an FMS, just sitting there never connecting.

Best practice is to always have the test team validate the packages as built for release before uploading. I'd fire my test team, but it's me and need the job.

Mea Culpa. That's been fixed and a number of but fixes and usability updates have been added.

• All configuration settings now persist, you don't have to fiddle with stuff each time you restart the app.
  
• Text values for voltage, trip time, radio signal strength and bandwidth have been added for your pleasure.
  
• The simulate/connect to FMS buttons now work much better. If you connect to the FMS while the simulation is running the simulation stops. If you start a simulation while connected to the FMS it disconnects from the FMS first.
  
• If you have a touch screen, you can use touch to stop and rewind the individual strip charts which will either restart by themselves after 10 seconds or so or you can simply swipe the chart back to the end and it will pick up auto updating.
  
• There is a bug on Windows mobile where the app will suspend the background listening task if the phone goes to sleep. It's not supposed to do this and I'm looking into it. You should be able to simply leave your phone on the scorekeeper's table and the app should run in the background sending alerts to the band. Should, but currently can't.

Thanks to the folks who have tried this out.

[ratdude747]

If I had something running 10 I'd give it a spin in a couple weekends (battle for the bluegrass). However, I intentionally didn't upgrade any of my windows based systems to 10, so no bueno. The newest I have is 8.1 on my Asus Transformer.

[Doug Frisk]

Well, fancy that. Instead of taking 3 1/2 days to process the submission it happened overnight. The new version is in the store already.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/stor...r/9nblggh537r0

It even works.

[Doug Frisk]

I ran another update through yesterday. It's in the store. Mostly stability and usability fixes. Though a new feature is that if you right click on a graph (long tap on a touch device) you can save a copy of that graph. It's barely beyond demo code at this point, but it works.

The fonts are now fully dynamic, so no matter what the window size is, the fonts will scale to fit the space.

I have coded a zoom option that would allow you to do a full screen view on one team, but I'm not happy with it yet so that's not turned on in this build

The two big things I've yet to deal with are the ability to review already played matches and the ability to add FTA notes t the FMS.

[Jpatterson1710]

Unfortunately I didn't get to look into this for our off-season, I'd run it on practice day at KC this year but I guarantee our FMS support guy would be asking questions. Looking forward to seeing it-whenever that may be.

[runneals]

Originally Posted by Doug Frisk

Oh, and after all that verbiage I never actually posted the link to the app.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/stor...r/9nblggh537r0

And the video of it running on a HoloLens just because I can.

https://1drv.ms/v/s!ArciGmk3R-5GjLQ0ILHuTQ0V1wFF7g

That is freaking awesome! Now if only Apple could develop something like that... Wonder how this would work with Google Glass?

[Conor Ryan]

Our team has access to 5 hololenses! We'll be at NYC and Hudson Valley, but we might be able to make other events work for friends