About Off-Season FMS and Requirements

Overview

The Field Management System (FMS) is the electronics core of a FIRST® Robotics Competition (FRC®) playing field and encompasses both hardware and software components. The software package is used to control all the field electronics (LED Displays, Station Control Cabinets, E-stops, enable/disable of the Robots, network security, etc.) and is used to manage the event by creating match schedules, scoring the matches in real-time, and posting information to the Audience screen. The FMS Off-Season version is designed to work without the full set of FRC field electronics, but retain much of the functionality that remains useful to events without FIRST hardware.

Additional information about the software can be found in the other articles of this documentation.

Hardware Requirements

To run the Off-Season version the following minimum hardware items are required:

  • Laptop or desktop computer with Ethernet Port

  • WiFi Access Point (Linksys WRT610N or equivalent)

  • Ethernet Switch (Unmanaged, 8 port, qty 3 recommended)

Other items, such as speakers or a projector, are recommended to supplement the user experience but not required for basic functionality.

Software Requirements

In order to install Off-Season FMS, the target machine must meet these minimum requirements:

  • Operating System: Windows 10

  • Processor Speed: 64 bit OS

  • CPU: 2.0 GHz

  • Memory: 2 GB RAM

  • Hard drive: 1 GB free hard disk space

  • Hardware: Ethernet and USB Port

  • Resolution: 1920x1080 or higher for best visibility

Audience Display Requirements

The Audience Display program controls all audio and graphics intended for audience consumption. It can be run on the same machine as Off-Season FMS or on a separate Windows machine located on the same network as the FMS installation. The machine being used as the Audience Display must have a modern graphics card capable of running an extended monitor at 1280x720 or 1920x1080 with 100% scaling (based on the Windows scaling settings). For game sounds, the machine must have speakers or connect to a system capable of accepting the audio output of the machine (such as a 1/8” heaphone jack). If using a secondary machine as the Audience Display, it should be connected via Ethernet, not wireless.

Important Off-Season Notes

Do not install FMS Off-Season on top of a previous installation of the software. It is safest to completely uninstall and remove any previous installations of FMS from your computer before installing a new version. For assistance in properly removing a previous version, please see this article.

Note

Important: Do not install FMS Off-Season on machines that are school or business “owned” or controlled. These machines often include restrictive user accounts, additional firewall and security programs, etc, which are not tested by FIRST and may interfere with FMS’s ability to function properly.