Team Leaders,

MSHSL Championship Qualification Rankings

The State Championship qualifications are posted weekly on this page (https://mnfirst.org/off-season-events/mshsl-championship/). MN teams are playing their first event right up to Week 6 so final qualification rankings won’t be out until the end of the season.

MURA Practice Field

All MN FRC teams with practice robots can take advantage of the full-sized FRC MURA Practice Field with field elements located at Lincoln Community School, 2131 N 12th Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55411.

Available dates of MURA Practice Field are Mondays and Thursdays (4- 8 pm) and Saturdays (10am- 4 pm) through the end of March. Contact herobotics2500@gmail.com with any questions

The registration link below has been updated.
https://goo.gl/forms/ui5Wo7P5q6HrfYnD2

Control System Advisor update

Below are some lessons learned from Week and Week 2 events. This list is comprised of input from the Week 1 and Week 2 FTA, LRI and CSA crews. In addition to this notice, the following information will be posted on the First MN Website under Recent News and the First MN CSA GitHub. Please note this list has been updated and some items have been removed from week 1.

Special thanks to the LRIs, FTAs and CSAs from Duluth and the Great Northern Regional for your contributions to this list!

Please contact the CSAs for further details. Contact info at the bottom of this notice.

General

• Ensure wires are properly seated and clicked into place.
• Double and then triple check all fasteners, bolts and screws to ensure they are securely fastened.
• Double and then triple check wiring terminal ends, battery wire terminals on the battery, main breaker and PDP to ensure they are securely fastened.

RoboRio

• Ensure power cables are firmly inserted and locked in to the PDP and Rio power connector. Use of ferrules is highly recommended.
• Ensure power cables have NO copper showing on either end when they are inserted into the respective devices, PDP and Rio.
• Ensure Ethernet cable is firmly plugged in and locks in, if you don’t feel it snap or click in, push cable in further until it does or replace the cable.
• Ensure RoboRio image is V17, check using the Diagnostics tab on the left and connected to a safely powered up Robot / RoboRio, the RIO: line should end in _v17, if you have _v16, you need to update the Rio Image using the RoboRio imaging tool after installing FRCUpdateSuite 2018.1.0

Driver’s Station

• Ensure you driver’s station is ready and appropriate for competition.
◦ Boots in < 2 minutes (< 30 seconds is very achievable with a $100 SSD)
◦ Has working Ethernet and USB ports.
◦ The team has administrative control over the laptop
◦ See competition checklist / best practices at http://github.com/firstmncsa/csa_resources for more details.
• Turn off Windows Updates while at competitions.
• Turn off Windows Defender Firewall on private networks while at competitions.
• Turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on the driver station while at competitions.

Robot Power

• Ensure battery connector is firmly attached. You should feel it snap closed.
◦ Optional: Run a long zip tie between the red and black wires on both ends to pull and lock connector closed. Pull zip tie tight, leave no gap.
• Ensure battery cable crimps are tight and cables are not bent at sharp angle immediately after crimp. Replace crimps if they are, use heat shrink over crimp and wire to help with wire relief.

Robot Code

• Ensure you are using the latest version of the CTRE Lifeboat and firmware. Please contact firstmn.csa@gmail.com for further details.
• Java / C++: Game data should be retrieved in autonomousInit not in RobotInit, please see example code on the First MN CSA csa_resources GitHub, link below.
• Java / C++: Conditional code should not be used in a CommandGroup constructor, due to gameData possibly not being available during CommandGroup construction. Use ConditionalCommands instead.
• Java teams need to check for null values from getGameSpecificMessage, we have an example up on GitHub now on one way to handle that, along with a testing mechanism to duplicate FMS behavior.
◦ eg; powerup2018-java-example
• LabView teams, please ensure you have code deployed permanently before going onto the field for competition, preferably before queuing.

PoE injectors

After the connectivity issues in week 1, we secured a generous donation of alternative POE injectors for the week 2 Regionals in Duluth. At the event, we recommended every team swap to the new ones. Most teams took this option, and we saw far fewer connectivity issues through the weekend. While there is still no confirmed issue with the orange KOP injectors, we will be providing alternatives again at the Minneapolis regionals for any team that needs one.

• Please note the above PoE injector needs to be cabled differently than the KoP PoE injector. This model should have it’s ethernet connector plugged into the RoboRio and it’s power lead connected to the VRM, then a standard ethernet cable run from the PoE ethernet jack to the ethernet port next to the power port of the radio. This is opposite of the KoP PoE ethernet cable routing. The power lead cabling is the same as the KoP PoE injector.

Competition Checklist – includes all the recommendations above and much more. Updated often as new items of note are vetted.

• URL: https://github.com/firstmncsa/csa_resources/blob/master/competition_checklist_best_practices.txt

As always, if you have any questions please contact your friendly neighborhood MN CSA, details below. Thanks and see you in Minneapolis!

Contact Details:
Email: firstmn.csa@gmail.com
Slack: firstmncsa.slack.com
Slack invite: https://goo.gl/3yzrJo
Twitter: @firstmncsa
Web: https://mnfirst.org/local-assistance/

Regards, Mark Lawrence
Chairman, MN FIRST Regional Planning Committee