Here is an e-mail I just got from FIRST
Dear FRC Teams,
Please allow me to update you on our examination of the Championship final rounds.
As part of the examination, FIRST will evaluate the field and all robots that were on Einstein as a complete system—a system as comparable as possible to what existed at Championship. We have received and reassembled the Einstein field equipment at headquarters in Manchester, and we are in the process of retesting its functionality. In addition, we are asking each of the twelve teams that competed on Einstein to (1) allow FIRST to ship their robot to Manchester, (2) provide an adult representative to be present for testing, and (3) provide detailed systems information, including driver station logs and robot code. Each of the teams has acted with the utmost grace and professionalism, and for that we are truly grateful.
We also recognize that many of you have important information to share about your experiences this year. Thank you to those who have passed along such information in response to my April 29th e-mail. To make that process easier, we have set up an e-mail for you to share your experiences and expertise: [email protected]. Please know that while all of your feedback will be reviewed and considered, FIRST will not be able to respond to every e-mail.
We are also investigating the issues on Einstein with independent, outside experts as well as respected leaders in the FIRST community. We remain steadfastly committed to understanding the root causes of the issues and resolving them. I will continue to report our process, progress and eventually the findings of the examination.
Whoa. This is fantastic. They’re even acknowledging, potentially, the issues outside of Einstein field by soliciting input from teams. What a great step forward.
The lengths their going to get this figured out is certainly impressive. I really feel for the difficulty of their job here… It’s quite possible they get the robots on the field and run all day and have no issues. What if the problem was a loose wire that’s now tight since the field has been disassembled and reassembled? What if it was having thousands of cell phones in the arena next to the field? What if it was some specific environmental problem in the dome that isn’t present now? Hopefully bringing back those same teams helps them reproduce the issue reliably!
Now that the cat is out of the bag…
Headquarters has actually told teams that they can also send one student team member with an adult if that student is a critical part of the programming/control of their robot. We are sending our programmer/driver and our programming mentor to assist with the effort taking place on June 9 and 10. It’s a long way from Vegas but it will be worth the trip if the effort provides useful information.
Kudos to all the Einstein teams for their support of this process! I guess no one should be surprised that the “final 12” would all be pinnacles of professionalism.
Einstein Field was never used at a regional. It spent the season stored in Tennessee, waiting for the catastrophic failure of another field, to replace it if need be.
The Einstein field is kept as a backup and not used until Championship, if I’m not mistaken…
Props to FIRST for taking these steps, there sure was a lot of criticism after the Championship and I’m glad their serious about figuring out the problem. It it means a serious overhaul of FMS and utilizing something better than consumer-grade WiFi radios, I’m all for it-hopefully they’re willing to take that step, if necessary.
This has been brought up. It’s certainly a possible factor, but mysterious communications issues occurred at several events—including some of the divisions—throughout the season. It’s also unclear what would be different about this field from the others (something that I’m sure will be investigated if necessary in Manchester).
I personally don’t believe the issue was contained to a single field this year. I obviously have nothing to prove that point that isn’t circumstantial, but I think making the assumption that this is an isolated incident that was unique to Einstein is not a safe one to make at all.
Are the teams travel and hotel costs being paid for by FIRST? I sure hope so.
It seems like this email is kind of finally admitting it was a greater problem than just Einstein by asking teams to email in the issues they had outside of Einstein which I think is crucial to not only finding the cause of the issue but also restoring people’s faith in the way FIRST deals with these issues.
I’m pretty sure this is correct. There were plenty of other connection problems at a bunch of events.
That said, FIRST is doing the best they can, and they certainly are not shying away from the problem at all. The most we can hope for is that FIRST finds not just a problem on the Einstein field, but possibly the derivative of all of these connection issues so that it can be corrected for next season.
