Off-Season Scrimmage arena control

[Andrew_Schuetze]

Howdy,

A couple of the teams from Central and South Texas FRC are likely to be demonstrating their robots at a Technology Association trade show this July. What kind of issues do we need to be concerned with when operating with radios in the conference hall? Would we be able to run some Two on Two OR Three on Three scrimmages without any modifications or do we need to rent an arena system from IFI?

[Kyle_Fenton]

The best solution for you is to use a dongle on your OI. You will have to make them, but they are simple to construct.

VEXpro

[Jeff_Rodriguez]

You can change the radio channel by flipping the highest bit on your team number. That will allow you to change the switches for the radio channel. You’ll have to tether everything to put the new team number in the RC, but it will work.
We’ve run 4 robots before without any dongles .

[Jeremiah_Johnson]

@Ogre

You can change the radio channel by flipping the highest bit on your team number. That will allow you to change the switches for the radio channel. You’ll have to tether everything to put the new team number in the RC, but it will work.
We’ve run 4 robots before without any dongles .

Heh… I remember in 2005, I think, we tried to do this but none of the engineers could get it to work. I suppose we’d use the 2005 and 2007 robots for demonstrations again, so I’d be interested in a detailed, step-by-step instruction on how to do this. Anyone know where to find instructions or care to describe it via PM for me?

[Jeff_Rodriguez]

@Budda648

Heh… I remember in 2005, I think, we tried to do this but none of the engineers could get it to work. I suppose we’d use the 2005 and 2007 robots for demonstrations again, so I’d be interested in a detailed, step-by-step instruction on how to do this. Anyone know where to find instructions or care to describe it via PM for me?

Page 17 - http://ifirobotics.com/docs/oi-ref-guide-1-30-07.pdf

Steps for changing channels:

1. Set the MSB of the Team Number Dipswitch to Open. This will set the Team Number greater than 2048.
2. Make sure both units (RC and OI) are set to the same Team Number by tethering.
3. Remove tether after a Link has been established.
4. Set the CHANNEL dipswitch to the desired channel.
5. Press OI RESET on the Operator Interface.
6. Press RESET on the Robot Controller.
7. Note: ROBOT RESET on the Operator Interface will not work for this.
8. After a few seconds, the “Valid RX” LEDs should be flashing on both units, indicating each is transmitting and receiving good data with the correct team number and channel number – a Link has been established.

[Doug_G]

@Budda648

Heh… I remember in 2005, I think, we tried to do this but none of the engineers could get it to work. I suppose we’d use the 2005 and 2007 robots for demonstrations again, so I’d be interested in a detailed, step-by-step instruction on how to do this. Anyone know where to find instructions or care to describe it via PM for me?

Just remember the process changed from 2004 to 2005, but since 2005 I think it has stayed the same. It used to be that you had to go through the comp port to unlock the frequencies/channels. Now you just tether up, change the most sig bit on team number, change the channel, reset and you’re good to go just as OGRE mentioned. We did a scrimmage back in '05 had a lot of trouble between old OI’s and new OI’s. Good Luck and have fun!