end of match autonomous mode

[!aaaaa!]

How awesome would an autonomous mode be at the last 30 seconds of the match

[Josh Murphy]

I think this would be a great idea. It would truly add to the challenge of the game. In my opinion I think this would make things more interesting, There would be no official starting box or spot so it would make the programming more challenging and the match outcome may become more exciting.

[rees2001]

This could separate the men from the boys if you will. If there are X number of points for getting on your home ramp or whatever. The boys will run while they can still operate the robots. The men will keep playing and let the robots sort it out. I like it.

Note: this message is not intended to be derogatory towards men, women, boys, girls, or elephants.

[Billfred]

I think it depends highly upon the game. Let's consider:

Stack Attack: It's possible to determine when you're on the top of the ramp--it could be done, and those who'd have to park early would have fun trying to stay in place.
FIRST Frenzy: Raising the Bar: Given the hard nature of getting to the bar and hanging upon it, I wouldn't expect the result to be that great.
Triple Play: If the vision system was more successful that year, it could have been done. In practice...not so much.
Aim High: Definitely.
Rack 'N' Roll: Depends on your function--if you were trying to get one last ringer, your first autonomous routine could just repeat. If you're trying to get on an unknown ramp in an unknown position, forget it.

[GaryVoshol]

I'm not sure it would be a great idea. It would be a super challenge, no doubt about it. I'm afraid it could be a very dangerous idea, depending on what task was to be accomplished in auto. When auto is first, the robots are separated by alliance and in [at least somewhat] defined positions. Even so, we had a couple of dramatic head-on crashes when Red's auto was run down the left side and cut in behind the rack, and Blue's auto was run down the right side and cut in. When you don't even know where your opponent's robots will be when auto cuts in, what do you do to avoid crashes? I also wonder a little about how the controls work. Suppose you're driving forward when auto kicks in - would you continue to drive forward unless you had made the first command in your autonomous program "stop motors"?

[Allison K]

I like autonomous at the beginning, but at the end not so much. I really like the excitement and suspense that builds those last few seconds of the match, and what with many autonomous modes consisting of half (or fewer) or the robots moving it may be anticlimactic.

~Allison

PS - The poll needs a choice between "good challenge" and "horrible idea." I'm not particularly a fan, but calling an idea (or at least this particular one) horrible seems a bit hostile. :)

[Alan Anderson]

PS - The poll needs a choice between "good challenge" and "horrible idea."

I would have liked the option to choose both "good challenge" and "nightmare".

[R2D2DOC]

Please consider the challenges so many teams had performing Autonomous at the beginning of the match. An end-of-match autonomous could be so challenging that many teams won't even try. FIRST would like to promote as many teams as possible to try such tasks.

For the 2008 season, I hope FIRST will look at post season variations of thier rules and encourage teams to try Autonomous at the beginning of the match. For example, the Post Season 2007 Autonomous gave the 15 point bonus for Keepers at IRI and other venues.

[EricH]

Wait until more teams have something more than a "Mars Rock" auto mode at the start of the match. Right now, it's not a good idea. Maybe in a few more years, enough teams will have managed a decent beginning auto mode to trigger a new challenge involving an end-of game auto mode.

[Ian Curtis]

Personally, I'm waiting for this to happen. I've been putting it in the game suggestions thread for two years now. :D

I'm a firm believer that it would be a great idea, but at the same time, a complete and total nightmare, with highly entertaining consequences. I'd imagine that the way it would work would be a relatively simple challenge, that would only be scored if it happened during the autonomous period. That way, teams could have relatively simple dead reckoning programs, that they could line up with. However, you'd have to jockey for that lined up position, and if you are prevented from lining up (or you just plain run out of time), then highly entertaining antics could ensue. It would probably be a complete nightmare for teams, but great for the audience.

It's worth noting however, 30 seconds is way too long, I'd do 15 if the task involved moving significant distances and was hard to line up, 10 if it was easier.

I'm gonna do what Billfred did to show you what I mean:
Stack Attack: Well, if you don't know how this game was played, essentially, both alliances fought to end up on one slippery platform in the center of the field (there were ramps leading up to it on both sides) at the end of the match. Just lining up your robot and ramming up and over it would be highly entertaining to the audience seeing as it has a couple of good options:
A) Your robot gets air from moving to far, and missing an opponent.
B) You have a spectacular collision with another robot and one or both you go careening off the other side.

FIRST Frenzy: Raising the Bar: If you made only autonomous hangs count, then it'd be pretty boring if teams got lined up right. If they came from the floor everyone (with the notable exception of 190) would've fallen over.

Triple Play: Triple Plays autonomous would've been really hard to make autonomous. Pretty boring I think.

Aim High: Well, this would alter the game significantly, but autonomous ramping would've been fun to watch.

Rack 'N' Roll: Oh my. The GDC could've made this one easy (aka, ramps can only be lifted in autonomous) or impossible (only robots lifted in autonomous count, robots can not go behind the line until autonomous starts)

I think though, if the game is designed with the end of match autonomous mode in mind, it would be very sweet.

[hipsterjr]

Just wait until one of the GDC guys gets a look at this thread:eek: They are really going to screw with our heads with this material.

I think it can defiantly be done if designed into the game, but as it has been mentioned, it would be very anticlimactic considering many teams can not or chose not to have an autonomous.

While not practical, it would be very interesting to see in a exhibition match.

[Laaba 80]

I think it is a very interesting idea. If the robot does not utilize the vision system, it would add a whole new range of comlplexity for the drivers. They need to make sure they are in exactly the right spot, which could be complicated. It would be very cool, and very difficult

[dlavery]

Just wait until one of the GDC guys gets a look at this thread:eek: They are really going to screw with our heads with this material.

Heh, yeah, like we aren't going to do that anyway...

And, yes, we have noticed that this has been suggested for at least the past two years in the "So you design the game" threads. And thought of by some others for several years before that. ;)

-dave

[technoL]

Depending on the game, I can only see this as disastrous for most teams. There are a few teams that shine in auto mode, and they will most likely continue to succeed, but everyone else will still be left in the dust at the robot beauty pageant.

Many robots are damaged at the end of the match. How could a team guarantee a functional auto mode when they are unsure of the condition of their robot? Sure, greater technology could be used to navigate to/around field obstacles, but it leaves many at a great disadvantages. It seems to be that there is a certain line of difficulty that teams draw; once FIRST creates a game element to reach that point, many teams simply give up on the additional challenge. If FIRST wants to encourage more teams to develop advanced software or utilize autonomous, making the challenge harder is not the way to go.

[Guy Davidson]

Just as iCurtis said, I think the game has to be designed with it in mind. I would love to have some autonomous at the end of the of the match. It would make for one heck of a challenge.

[d.courtney]

I for the most part like the idea. In regards to everyone saying this would be boring/anticlimatic at the end, why would everyone be forced into this end autonomous? Instead towards the end of the game you have a challenge available to only those in autonomous, while the other teams are free to continue with the bulk part of the game. To activate autonomous, teams press a button similar to that of the kill switch. That team then has 5 or some other number of seconds to get out of the drivers area. via light seqences or maybe even a special light the audiance, refs, and other drivers can tell which teams are running in autonomous. I think seeing this would perhaps (with the right game) make for some of the most exciting endings.

[rhoads2234]

It would be so hard to program - either driving training to place yourself on the field or an awesome vision/sensing array
it would, as others said, make the good teams shine but many teams might not even try because of the challenge

you would also have to be very cautious of other 'bots on the field because use could seriously mess up calcutions of speed, distance or direction if something is on the field

[bear24rw]

If they had an end game autonomous mode for rack and roll where you could score a tube, we would barely need to change our autonomous mode, all we would add is just spin the robot around until you see the light, then run the autonomous mode we already had lol I would love to see endgame autonomous mode

[amateurrobotguy]

It is already extremely difficult for even moderately experienced teams to get even a beginning autonoumous with defineable positions. It is a good conceptual idea, but way to hard to implement into the progging.

[Richard McClellan]

This would definitely be a "good challenge", but I really hope it doesn't happen for at least a few more years. We need to see more teams capable of completing the autonomous before the match starts first. Like others have said, it could definitely be catastrophic. Think about the robots that could be tipped over at the end of the match - if these robots attempted to open up an arm or something while in this state, it could be very very bad.

While a "good challenge," this is an idea I really hope FIRST doesn't use...

[Josh Goodman]

This would be intense and fun if all of the robots had a honed auto mode. I've seen robots go out of control just in the beginning autonomous mode. I think for most teams it should be fine but not only is it not fair to those teams who don't have very advanced programmers, It isn't safe.

Just leave it at the beginning, it was a challenge there too.

[Chief Samwize]

I think this would be a great idea. It would truly add to the challenge of the game. In my opinion I think this would make things more interesting, There would be no official starting box or spot so it would make the programming more challenging and the match outcome may become more exciting.

Yeah sure Josh lets just mess with the programmer...:D

I don't think it is that bad of an idea. It would add many new elements to the game as well and pose some interesting challanges for programmers. The only problem I would see with doing this is a team not where they need to be at the end of the operator control to start autonomous and something going horribly wrong from there. Otherwise I think it would be kind of cool.

-Sam

[Ian Curtis]

Heh, yeah, like we aren't going to do that anyway...

And, yes, we have noticed that this has been suggested for at least the past two years in the "So you design the game" threads. And thought of by some others for several years before that. ;)

-dave

So... Dave posts in a thread about the game and no one tries to finagle some abstract meaning out of it? What is the world coming to?!* :rolleyes:

*Some semblence of sanity perhaps?


On a more serious note, I don't think "optional" autonomous is very plausible for two reasons. One, is it creates more work for the field (and more things to go wrong). Additionally, if my robot is operating in autonomous, and it's got human drivers blocking me, I'm not going to score. They'll get in the way every time.

Amateurrobotguy, you talk about how its hard enough for teams with predefined positions. Here they get to pick their position. For example, consider Aim High (2006). Let's say that autonomous is at the end of the match, and balls scored during this period are worth 2x what they were during the teleoperated period. So, now you can drive your robot right up to the goal, line up, and then the only thing the robot has to accomplish autonomously is shoot them. That's surely easier, isn't it? Plus those teams who are good at autonomous can show off their skills (and gain a relative time advantage during the match), by being able to be in a larger area, and less precisely lined up when autonomous starts. This gives them an additional gameplay bonus (you can continue to play after your opponents have gone to line up for the autonomous portion of play). Also, in the world of strategy, it makes choices that much harder. Do you continue to block Team X, in hopes of preventing them from scoring, or do you go line up for your autonomous, in hopes of outscoring them? Decisions, decisions, decisions... :yikes:

Also, I didn't mean to imply that autonomous at the end of the match was my idea, as I'm positive I read about the idea on CD and became a convert. :o

[Bongle]

For the people saying "we need to wait a few years for teams to get caught up with autonomous modes", I don't think that'll ever happen. By the very nature of a high school competition, in any given year, a certain substantial percentage of FRC teams will be in a building/rebuilding/starting/learning phase that will prevent them from being able to perform solidly autonomously. If you wait for that churn to finally end and for most teams to be able to do a competitive autonomous mode, you're going to be waiting forever.

Also, perhaps Rack 'n Roll left a poor impression on people's confidence in many teams' autonomous abilities: when the reward is quite low (2005, 2007) and the difficulty is extremely high (2005, 2007), you're going to have boring autonomous periods. In games like Aim High, even if you couldn't get balls in the goal, you could still prevent others from doing so with small amounts of effort. In Stack Attack, you could conceivably knock over your opponent's pre-built stacks if you couldn't navigate to the central stack.


Anyway, I'd LOVE an end-of-game autonomous (EOGA) in 2009 (when I'll be able to mentor), and here are my responses to common arguments:
It's too hard for most teams - If the challenge is simply "starting from outside <location>, get to <location>", then driver training and a dead-reckoning mode would be sufficient, and that can be done by any team. More sophistication could allow for experienced teams to navigate to <location> from farther away via camera.
It's dangerous for the robot - That's what the driver's E-Stop is for.
It's dangerous for humans - That's what the ref's E-Stop (they have one, right?) is for.
The robot might be damaged - If you know of the damage beforehand, hit the E-Stop during the pause that I presume would occur before EOGA. If you do not know beforehand, then I don't see how 15 seconds of autonomous would be more damaging to your robot than 15 seconds of human-operated play. In both cases, as soon as you see the robot damaging itself, you stop it from doing so (either via E-Stop or just stopping what you're doing).
Other robots might get in the way - That currently happens in the current autonomous anyway. In 2003, 2004, 2006, and to some extent 2007, autonomous modes could result in full-throttle collisions.