The engineering team at FIRST® and several volunteers have been working to correct issues related to counting notes in the amp and the FIRST API sync of match data. I apologize for the negative impact that these issues had on the event experience for teams, volunteers, and spectators.
Amp Scoring
Some events have seen repeated issues with the Amp reliably counting scored Notes. Many of these issues were solved by event volunteers and the FIRST engineering team implementing technical solutions like adding shielding to better control the lighting around the sensor array and confirming sensor alignment and calibration. Other events continued to experience issues even with these solutions in place.
On Saturday, another change was instituted at the two events experiencing the most significant issues, the St. Louis Regional and the Ontario North Bay District Event. At these two events, a human scorer was added to watch each Amp. If a Note was missed, the scorer was given a way to manually add the Note via a tablet in real-time to help minimize the impact of the missed count on the flow of the match.
This update was rolled out to all events on Sunday, March 24, and we plan to have this feature available at least for Week 5 events. Per Section 6.7.17 of the Game Manual, “If a DRIVE TEAM has a question about a MATCH, the FIELD, etc., they may send 1 DRIVE TEAM member to their corresponding Question Box.”
AUTO Scoring Verification
Events may station field volunteers (e.g. field reset staff) behind the Speaker to monitor for Note jams during the Autonomous period. Jams have not occurred frequently. If a jam occurs, the volunteer will share the appropriate count of autonomous scored Notes with the Scorekeeper after the Match.
FIRST API Sync
Match information stopped updating in real-time for all events during Week 3 due to an issue syncing match schedules to our cloud database. For Week 4 events, match results were synced manually at set intervals on Friday and Saturday. Live sync was turned back on one event at a time on Sunday to monitor for issues.
There were no recurrent issues on Sunday, and while there may be some short delays, we anticipate fewer incidents and the sync to work as anticipated for Week 5. If there are issues, banner messages will be posted on the frc-events pages.
I extend my sincere thanks to the FIRST® Robotics Competition engineering team and the amazing volunteers who were investigating these issues and implementing solutions while also keeping Week 4 events running.
Good luck to everyone in Week 5!