I love the idea of somehow opening Einstein to the top seeded teams, rookie or otherwise, who weren’t picked in their division. Maybe it’s just the robots who would otherwise be on standby. Maybe leave the top ranked unpicked robot ready to roll at their home field and let the others play on Einstein. If the left behind robot is picked then you pull out the next one from the Einstein matches.
I know from experience that about the worst thing you can be is the 4th highest seed unpicked robot. You can’t pack up but the chances of you playing are next to nil. This would give those teams a fun consolation prize.
I agree, but if they don’t want any wear on the field at all, they can test the field without playing matches.
In other words, what they really need to test is electronics and communications, and that can be tested without having physical robots beating up the field (whether that wear and tear is significant or not is up for debate, but if they wanted people to use the fields before the finals, they wouldn’t make a whole new field just for Einstein, so they’d probably prefer if nobody used it before the finals.)
To mis-quote the internet: “Names or it didn’t happen.”
On another note, I feel that the idea of a JV-team finals on Einstein sounds great - even if it doesn’t particularly test the field, it gives these teams a great experience, especially if it’s for the top rookie teams.
Just saw this in a post earlier but I wanted to add my understanding about the actual FMS software and the FMS Light we can download. FMS Light is a mess and it is very difficult to understand and trudge through.
Thankfully FRC engineering understood this from last year and modified a lot of the process. Now the scorekeeper or field power controller is the one in charge of starting the pre start to engage the AP to generate the next set of SSID’s. And the head ref is the one that actually publishes the scores up on the big screen after the match is over. This is part of the movement over toward real time scoring.
So this year the direct user interaction with the FMS software was significantly reduced. From what I understand the main interaction was to fix any scoring mistakes or penalty issues.
So mainly the interface was not directly through the server running FMS but more the indirect action through the field PLC that controls the real time scoring and AB PanelViews for the refs
Give each Einstein alliance a “practice period” where they have say 3:00 of field time to themselves. The time can be used to confirm field functionality, calibrate sensors, practice strategies, and impress the crowd.
FIRST seems to really be going to the show atmosphere during the finals, so I doubt we will see an integration of actual match time be it practice or not before the actual Einstein matches.
The show mentality is a great way to handle it and it looks much more professional (when everything works) that way. But the FIRST needs to change the way things are done that everyone who operates the field and everyone who uses the field has 100% in both ways and the equipment that connect the two.