Guthman Competition Reflection

There were I few things I noticed during my trip that I would like to take note of.
Technical things to note: 
1. Max would consistently not open when I first turn on my computer and it is connected to my personal router. If I turn off my laptop's wifi first, then Max would open and everything worked fine. After that initial opening, I can leave my laptop connected to the router and Max can be opened/quit as needed without issue. I only started noticing this after I crossed the border into the US and I have yet to test if it is still happening in Canada. 
-March 16 update: I tested this and it is consistent when I am at home in version 8.2.1. I then installed version 8.2.2, restarted my computer, made sure that my network was connected first, and this was fixed! 
2. Occasionally my computer refuses to recognize my Scarlett audio interface. It seems that if I quit Max then it will be recognized. This has not happened often enough for me to be able to tell if it is consistent or not. 
-March 16 update: so far I have not been able to reproduce this. If Max is already open, it doesn't seem to prevent the Scarlett from being recognized by my computer. The green light for it at the front comes on after a couple seconds. Version 8.2.1 of Max. I then updated to version 8.2.2 and I still could not reproduce this issue. 
3. If Max is left open for too long it will stop accepting incoming OSC data. I asked someone else who also uses OSC with Arduino/ESP on a regular basis and it happened once to them as well. 
-March 16 update: I noticed that if my instrument is sending data already to Max, and then I go to Options | Audio Status, there is a moment where the OSC data freezes while the audio status window tries to open. It makes me think it is possible that if it gets stuck trying to open, this can simulate what looks like a wireless issue or a short. Version 8.2.1 of Max
-After updating to 8.2.2 I left Max open for an hour (without my patch open just Max running in the background). I then came back and started up the patch and got the GLOBE going. Everything worked perfectly fine! So either updating to 8.2.2 made it so Max is more reliable even if it's left open for a really long time before being used, or my computer has very bad stage fright when it comes to actual live performance. 
4. Having to unplug the router in order to use the serial port is very very bad and easy to forget to do in the heat of the moment. This should be changed in the Arduino Sketch, even if it means introducing a little bit more latency to have it the way it originally was during my thesis. 
5. There is an update for Max available, but I had not yet installed it because I have a rule to never install updates just before a presentation/concert. It's possible that updating may help some of these issues. => March 16: updating to 8.2.2 fixed the issue of Max not responding when I'm first connected to my personal network (I think)

Things about the GLOBE: 
1. Previously I thought the IR sensor would get jittery when at rest if the battery was starting to get low. But it was doing it while on stage in the Ferst center. It may have something to do with the bright pot lights shining down on it. I have yet to test if I can re-create these conditions for the IR sensor at home. For the concert and presentation I had to slightly raise the threshold for the IR sensor that cuts out this jitter, but that's fine. 
2. Many people came up to talk to me about the GLOBE and many people wanted to try it during the presentation day. Even when it wasn't my turn to demonstrate, a couple times I turned around and there was someone picking it up, or taking a closeup pick of it. While they were playing with it, people seemed to really like the colour sensor. They had a tendency to turn the GLOBE upside down so that the colour sensor is pointing upwards while they try to put a colour against it. Also, they seemed to light the colour away slowly. These two things made the colour sensor less accurate because they were pointing it up at an orange tinged pot light and as they were pulling the colour away slowly, it would still be just close enough of a distance for the Max patch to sample it as a new colour. It really wanted to stay on orange from that orange stage light. It made me realize that I also have a tendency to reach my hand under the GLOBE to trigger the colour sensor, so I would not necessarily have this problem before.
3. People also had a tendency to use the touch sensors, but not the IR sensor as much. 
4. Mir, my performing partner for the concert, liked to keep the coloured glove constantly on the colour sensor so that way it would for sure not change the section when she didn't want it to. That is something I hadn't thought of doing before. 

I'll update this post after I tested a few technical things to see if I can reproduce some of these issues.