Can someone give me the reasoning behind not verifying that the robot will respond to the enable/disable and auto/drivers test? I pull lots of teams in the early part of the season that didn’t use the “template”. Yea, by Worlds this should be sorted out, but there is a long road from Sept to March.
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Just wondering, what happens if you run a normal program while connected to field control?
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I was concerned about this as well. I’m not sure why they removed it. I would like to see more reasoning behind the change with the update
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If you are not using the template or the correct start blocks, the robot is live all the time. Which means at the end of the match when all the other robots stop moving, that robot can keep going.
So that last second score can really happen 5 seconds after the match ends.
This isn’t true. VexOS has full control over motors, etc., and does not allow user code to control them when the robot is in the disabled state.
As for why the rule was modified, the competition switch test had not been a part of the inspection checklist for 2 years now, so I imagine the change was simply to bring the game manual into agreement.
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The V5 doesn’t care, motors will still be disabled when the robot is disabled and the controller is ignored during autonomous. All the competition template does is provide an easy way to monitor the competition status and run different sections of code, it’s really is just a “normal” program.
and I have no idea why the inspection test was removed.
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Who is to say the team runs the same program for inspection that they run at the field anyway? As an inspector I’ve had more issues of teams driving their robot off the table after the inspection is done and they unplug the controller that I’ve had failed inspections. It never ends well.
I say good riddance.
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Too many robots running off the inspection table during field control test?
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yea, that’s a good point.
I think many years ago (back in the 75MHz radio days) it made more sense as control was simpler, but I always felt like we were just going through the motions of checking this in inspection and it wasn’t that important. At big events the practice matches are the best place to make sure all the competition code is performing as intended.
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To build on that, which is more important - field control test or having latest VEXOS at inspection. I would argue time wise, that is more valuable. On the field, if it appears sketchy, then interview the team (with Adult member, per Game Manual definition, present). Usually honest mistake.
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But… the experience… holding your exceedingly mobile robot and hoping the inspector stops the auton fast enough that the robot doesn’t flip out!
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It’s never during the inspection, it’s after when they unplug and the robot resumes control and inevitably it’s full steam ahead on the controls.
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well I have caught a number of robots running off the table, but there is a more serious problem - safety - we’ve seen students / inspectors get wacked by the robot during inspection, it hurts. Also, a number of teams claimed their robot did not have autonomous, and robot flings into action - all team member eyes turn to their programmer who shrugs “I wrote it this morning…”
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@lacsap and @goofnrox , completely agreed. The entire process of testing the enable/disable is somewhat dangerous if done improperly. And it is rather easy to do improperly.
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Real reason I like this for this year - less time/gear during inspection. From EP standpoint more teams through inspection queue per hour.
(please do not suggest we use this found time to do Referee Video Review 
)
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On the one hand safety
On the other hand, where’s the fun in that!
It’s like playing Russian roulette with nerfed downsides!
Oh well, it was hilarious tho when my team captain a few years back got whacked by a tray. the irony was that he was the programmer who wrote the code
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What about BO3 elimination matches?
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My first thought was that they need to update the inspection checklist. Turns out field control test was not on the October '21 list. In a sense, nothing has changed. (https://www.roboticseducation.org/documents/2019/05/vrc-robot-inspection-checklist.pdf/)
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One thing we did at worlds in 2019, and may do again this year (still to be decided) is have inspectors connect the robot’s V5 brain to a PC and run a small non-resident program that does a certain amount of vexos and motor inspection automatically, results were displayed on the brain screen and also in the inspection program (which was a custom version of the V5 firmware utility). If vexos needed updating it could be done at that time. This is the type of result it would show (old version, I’ve not built it recently). It could be run via the controller if the robot brain USB port was damaged.
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Could this also be done via the new field control?
Additionally, would it be possible for this firmware validation software to be made available to worlds qualifying events? Historically, motor PTC tests were usually conducted at such events.
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