FRC Blog - Drive Base Opt Out: Take 2

FIRST General Forum
1

We had more than 1,000 teams participate in the drive base opt out last week.

That was fun, right? So much fun we’re going to open it back up… for two reasons.

  1. Canada, there’s new information that we think will affect your preferences.
    AndyMark has confirmed that you, Canadian teams, will be able to use your AndyMark voucher at Studica for in-country ordering. One rule: once you pick Studica, you can’t use the PDV at AndyMark. It’s one or the other.
  2. There was a bug that caused some teams’ selections to be undone.
    Essentially, if a Lead Mentor 1 or 2 checked the box, and then later something else was done in the team’s account that wrote to the database, the drive base selection reverted to the default “unchecked.” We know to add that to our test cases now. I’ll email the ~250 teams we suspect may have been affected by this directly too. The bug’s been fixed.

We will reopen the drive base opt out selection from noon (Eastern) tomorrow, Friday, 10/13/17 (good thing we’re not superstitious) to noon (Eastern) on Friday, 10/20/17.

https://www.firstinspires.org/sites/default/files/uploads/frc/Blog/superstitious.gif

So Lead Mentors 1 and 2, please take a few minutes to log in and make sure that the option displayed reflects your team’s preference.

https://www.firstinspires.org/sites/default/files/uploads/frc/Blog/kopblog2.png

For those of you that missed the first deadline or have changed your mind since, consider this a lucky do over.

I’m sorry for the inconvenience of this, and I thank you for your patience.

Finally, the only reason we’re able to take a week to reopen is because AndyMark’s going to absorb some of the schedule crunch this puts on drive base prep. We thank them, tremendously, for being so accommodating.

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To be perfectly honest it happens. We recently had a bug similar to something like this in a system I work on.

4

Lies! You don’t work.

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Does the studica option allow teams to also purchase other brands available through them such as Rev Robotics or Kauai Labs? Or is it specifically only for Andymark products. Also, what currency is it in?

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Does the studica option allow teams to also purchase other brands available through them such as Rev Robotics or Kauai Labs? Or is it specifically only for Andymark products. Also, what currency is it in?

I’d recommend contacting andymark for clarification. If they don’t have an answer, they’ll probably toss it back to HQ who will hopefully clarify in a blog post.

Anyone care to speculate how the error this time is different than round 1 registration? Looks like round 1 it was just not saving the most up to date revision. Drive base kit seems that if any thing else was done in the system their decision was reverted. Not feeling particularly confident about Round 2, I’m thinking I will just put only one regional on it and hope that we get in or high on the waitlist.

8

The issue with round 1 registration seemed to be that they used the first version of the preference list, not the most recent. Presuming each version is saved to a different row of the database, it’s a question of which row was selected when they did the assignments.

In this case, it sounds more like there’s a single row in the database for basic team information. Choosing to opt out of the kitbot changes one of the columns in that row from false to true (or vice versa). Making a change to other information in that database row caused the row to be updated again, and for some reason it updated it back to the original value instead of leaving the value that was already there. The system could be set up to always update every cell in that row when an update is needed, based on whatever sort of domain model they have in place, instead of only selectively updating the specific cells that were changed. If that’s the case, then it’s a question of how they default that particular field in the domain model.

9

It might be a related issue…when I signed up for Kickoff and pick up kit at Kickoff I just get “Saved” not “Yep, sent and received” or something else reassuring. Last year the same thing happened and at kickoff…there was no kit.

And that was AFTER I called HQ and they told me there was no problem. So, are others getting some more definitive message when they submit Kickoff and Kit pick up?

I am listed as Mentor 2 but I doubt that is the issue…it let me sign us up for event preferences without blinking.

T Wolter

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Kitbot is on Deal of the Day today at AndyMark.

http://www.andymark.com/dealoftheday.asp

FYI