This Saturday, I volunteered at another qualifying FIRST Tech Challenge robotics meet. Like before, I was a Field Inspector, but I also got to do Field Reset this time.
I started out with field inspections. There were 11 teams, most of which got through without any issues. Since this wasn't a league championship, outdated software was acceptable, so I just warned teams that needed to update that it wouldn't fly at the big meet. I was apparently the only Field Inspector, so when multiple teams came over at once, the Control System Adviser helped inspect some. There were a couple instances of robots not driving due to hardware profile mismatches, but those got sorted out and they were all ready by the time matches started.
Field Reset is much easier with this year's game than last year's. Here, I just had to move some large exercise balls back into the middle and put the small wiffle balls back on the sides. (As opposed to last year, where I had to pick up dozens of cubes and wiffle balls and then hurl them onto the field at the start of the next match.)
Unfortunately, the electronic beacons started failing after being buffeted by the robots throughout the matches. We tried to simulate them with volunteers holding alliance flags to indicate beacon color, but that was always a judgment call as to whether the robot actually hit the button. After the first of two sets of 17 matches, the teams' coaches convened and decided to reschedule the second set. That was for the best, since we were already more than an hour behind from the beacon trouble. Hopefully a venue and date can be found for this meet's thrilling conclusion.
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