Networks

There are many reasons to consider running a network for a BEST Robotics competition. You may want to locate scoreboards further from your scoring table than video cables allow. You may want to use direct-entry digital scoring, or make use of your network to connect judgest with PCSM in a different room. You may just want to browse memes while waiting on a team to find the field despite being paged 5 times already.

Whatever the reason, there are some considerations to make when running a network for BEST:

Will you use the venue/house network?
Will this network be internet connected?
Who's equipment will be used? (Own vs. Rent)
Will general volunteers have access?
Will you provide connectivity to your teams?
What applications will you use on your network?

We'll go through each of these points, and then look at two possible network architectures that you can use depending on the size of your event.

Venue and House Networks

As a general rule, you should not be using the venue or "house" network. Unless you personally are the IT that owns and operates that network (and even then you should really have BEST in a partition for so many reasons) you should not use the house network. This is because the house network is configured for the needs of the organization that owns and operates it, not BEST. This usually means that point-to-point connectivity is disabled or heavily filtered, addresses are not static or arranged for quick adjacency, and there may be other traffic or users present on the network.

The one thing you can use the house network for reliably is a WAN or Internet connection. This puts the untrusted network on the other side of a firewall from all BEST things, and makes the request to the venue much simpler. If you want to get internet from your venue, the magic request is usually a hard-line network connection supplied with DHCP, and with port-security disabled since you'll be providing a downstream router. Some venues will initially question the use of a downstream router, it is important to explain the unique technical challenges of BEST Robotics, the need for strict control of access to the network, and the ability to rigorously test everything days and weeks in advance of your game-day. If your network is sufficiently portable, you may even wind up bringing it with you to your practice or exhibition days, something that would be impossible to do with a specific venue's network.

Will You Have Internet?

Internet connectivity is extremely handy to have, and can make it much easier to retrieve materials from the BRI file manager, allow you to publish scores in real time, or allow you to use OSM for retrieval of advancement inputs.

Internet should always be supplied on a cable or network hardline. Generally you'll be connecting to an existing network and not provided directly with a public address, so you'll be stacking NATs. This is not ideal, but is comletely workable in most venues. Coordinate with venue IT to ensure you won't have the same address space on each side of your NAT.

Who's Equipment Will Be Used?

The complexity of most BEST events far exceeds that of the humble linksys router. Therefore, you'll need to gain access to some more suitable equipment. Later in this document you'll learn how to use the Gizmo FMS in a mode that provides you with a robust network for scoring and similar functions, but if you want a network that spans a large physical campus (such as a high school with courtyards) you'll need some more hardware. Consider carefully whether this is a prudent investment, or if it would be better to solicit either a donation in-kind from an IT firm, or find a volunteer who may "rent" you this equipment on a daily basis.

To put down some ballpark figures, the network equipment used to run Dallas BEST which covers a single large Gymnasium and 2 classrooms is approximately $250 invested across a substantial router, selection of cables, access point, and a nice case to protect the equipment. Moving up in scale, Capital BEST which in most years spans 2 Gyms, 3 Classrooms, a large Cafeteria space and usually a large lecture hall makes use of a substantial amount of equipment and cable, on the order of $2000 in equipment total. At the large end, Texas BEST which lights up service in the Texas Fair Park Collesium makes use of roughly $15k in network equipment, cable, and the associated hardware to transport, deploy, and crucially un-deploy over such a large footprint.

Do not underestimate these costs, but also understand that the largest cost is always the human one. BEST is an all-volunteer organization, and having hardware does you no good without skilled volunteers to understand the unique challenges that BEST poses, and our stringent requirements for success. You should expect that a skilled engineer who can provide their services commercially will run in the $250-$300/hr range. Many are willing to donate their time since BEST is on a mission that resonates with many industry professionals, but be aware the effort being asked of your volunteers.

Who Will Have Access?

Having a network opens up the question of who will have access to it. In general your scorekeepers will need to have access, but may not themselves need to know network passwords or access codes. You can simply pre-provision computers for them to use, or input these keys yourself.

In the author's experience, its usually okay to permit trusted volunteers to have access to the network, though usually this is accompanied by a short lecture (<20 seconds) about not sharing this access and being careful. If you intend to have general volunteers on the network, it is important to ensure that your scoring manager instances are secured using strong passwords, that your Gizmo FMS is protected by firewalls, and that you still be selective in how you actually provide volunteers with access.

If you intend to provide teams with access, it is imperative that they be isolated to a distinct VLAN and if possible distinct VRF. Teams must be considered untrusted actors on your network that represent and imminent security threat. While it is unlikely that any team would intentionally do harm, this is a risk you simply cannot afford to take, and can defend against without substantial effort.

When your network is receiving internet from your host venue, its a good idea to double check if there are any strings attached to the use of the host venue's internet. Many academic institutions receive their internet connections from vendors that put restrictions on how they can be used, and as a downstream consumer, you must abide by these restrictions if applicable. This can restrict out of the gate who has access, as many universities and schools will request you to have only "mission critical" entities on the network. Fortunately such places usually also provide a guest network for your attendees to use.

What Applications Will Be Available?

The entire point of having a network is to enable various applications to be used across multiple computers. There are several applications that are in common use across BEST, and some less common. Here are some of the most common and things you may need to consider: