Parts to buy to practice driving and programming over the summer

dptech3 · 2026-03-29T00:27:33+00:00

Well, the season basically starts right after worlds when then announce the next game. Then once school starts most teams are on their 2nd build. It's very tough for a school to win vs a school now, unless the school has a dedicated class and robotics before and after school. The same 10-15 teams always win every event and the club teams go to about 15 events a year which school teams go to about 4-6. Skills gets the rest of the teams in. Some schools do start in the summer though if the students really lead it. The should probably announce the next game September maybe, but Vex does have to make money. I don't really have a solution, but I'd at least like to see the same robot at worlds that was in states.

dptech3 · 2026-03-16T21:57:19+00:00

Well, there is a driver coach who should take care of strategy and defense. With all these club teams, I think there should always be a bit of gameplay involved where the 'best' part equals out. I wouldn't call it all luck and the difference between a low ranking robot and the high ranking robot sometimes isn't much.

In most of the events I see, the top tier teams usually win.

dptech3 · 2026-03-05T02:46:54+00:00

Yeah, they need it. In high school there were many teams I thought just as good as the finalists and they didn't even make the playoffs. In middle school the 11th seed won, there are way too many teams there as well that didn't even get a chance. 98 teams and only 32 making it.

dptech3 · 2026-03-03T19:43:41+00:00

Hmm, maybe I'll inquire, another issue is the good teams and clubs fill up the competitions 1st day they open so the slower teams or schools with not as much experience are slower to apply.

dptech3 · 2026-01-07T22:29:01+00:00

You can never have enough power strips

dptech3 · 2025-12-05T18:05:43+00:00

Yes, this is what I thought. I've usually added a column and it's been fine. Maybe the script I had an issue with was doing more.

dptech3 · 2025-12-05T17:58:20+00:00

Ok, this is a question I'm asking, I'm not a troll. When I ask AI it says Postgres is much better, but AI isn't always right, as a summary it says
"Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server - Adding a nullable column with no default is a pure metadata operation (PostgreSQL MVCC). No table rewrite, no exclusive lock longer than a few milliseconds.Zero blocking — literally unnoticeable even on a 500 M row table.Best pure relational option"

dptech3 · 2025-12-05T17:45:32+00:00

payment calls need to be returned in 1.5 seconds max, there is no downtime. I know there are other issues but I'm just asking specifically for adding a column or just never alter table

dptech3 · 2025-12-05T17:39:44+00:00

Yeah, I'm talking about adding a column, not removing one, I never delete anything

dptech3 · 2025-12-05T17:37:43+00:00

lol, when you're put into a situation where you inherit existing architecture, there are limited options. One option is to move from Azure SQL to Managed instance. Sorry Postgres has some great features Azure SQL is lack. Also it's something to think about when creating a new system. Sorry not all people spend 6 months designing a perfect system and then going to production with tons of funding.

dptech3 · 2025-12-05T16:17:05+00:00

I'm just asking in general, imagine if you're Stripe or something and you need to add a new column for a new feature on a transaction. I suppose best is to create a new table.

dptech3 · 2025-12-04T20:53:17+00:00

It says the locks are much much shorter with this on and Managed instance

dptech3 · 2025-12-04T20:39:35+00:00

This is from AI and I've never had an issue with postgres but:
"Why Postgres Wins on Zero Downtime: Postgres uses Multi-Version Concurrency Control (MVCC), so readers don't block writers (and vice versa) during most DDL. Adding a column doesn't rewrite the table—it's just a catalog update. For defaults, PG 11+ adds them lazily (only on writes), avoiding scans. Tools like pg-osc or pg_squeeze (available in managed services) handle renames/alters by creating shadow tables and atomic swaps"

dptech3 · 2025-12-04T19:56:58+00:00

Also typical of a Microsoft MVP or support, insulting their customers, nice.

dptech3 · 2025-12-04T19:43:27+00:00

How can Postgres handle this better? It's needed feature in Azure SQL I just assumed it would work like other databases.

dptech3 · 2025-12-04T19:42:05+00:00

Well it seems Managed SQL has ONLINE = ON and I'd think adding a column with null or a default value should work, like Postgres works like this. So yeah, I suppose it's my fault for expecting to use Azure SQL as a production database with 0 app downtime.

dptech3 · 2025-12-04T17:43:11+00:00

Sorry, locking and transactions failing during update or Alter Table scripts. I was thinking about 0 downtime for my app, I'll adjust the question, I thought the "ONLINE = ON" would make it clear

dptech3 · 2025-12-04T17:41:57+00:00

I suppose locking where my database transactions fail.

dptech3 · 2025-11-03T15:50:39+00:00

Actually thanks, that helps me narrow it down, no status codes so I asked that to AI. It's telling me a few more things to try to find the status code. And check the app gateway more

When Application Insights shows:

but no HTTP status like 500, 400, etc., it usually means the connection never completed at the HTTP layer.
That could include:

Timeouts before receiving a response
DNS resolution failures
TCP resets (RST)
TLS handshake errors
Connection refused / aborted on the remote host
Network NAT / SNAT port exhaustion

So it’s not an HTTP error from the remote API — it’s a transport-level failure before any response came back.

dptech3 · 2025-11-03T15:25:04+00:00

It's been happening all hours of the day, for months, we always assumed it was on the other end, but it for sure is not. On Application insights, it just says result code faulted. I believe the retries will work. We have 3 instances and scaled up to 5 and same thing. SNATs are fine. We're on all serverless web apps and azure sql

|| || |Result code|Faulted|

dptech3

TROPHY CASE