Autonomous Switch?
 

This year my team was thinking on having multiple autonomous methods depending on where we were starting on the field/what the teams in our alliance could do. One of the other mentors for the team saw physical switches when she was a judge last year in NJ on some robots. Does anyone know about this? Is there an easier way to have multiple auton methods?

Re: Autonomous Switch?
 

Use SmartDashboard

Re: Autonomous Switch?
 

We have usually just had a toggle or selector (or a few) on the dashboard of the driver station that we select depending on what we need to do, or where we need to be in autonomous. Its one of the easy ways we have found to vary the program and its not a lot of extra work for the programmers.

Re: Autonomous Switch?
 

Physical switches are a tried and true method, having been used by teams for over a decade. They will work when mounted on either the OI or the robot itself. During auto when you try to read the state of the OI you get whatever the values were before it went into auto.

Re: Autonomous Switch?
 

Last season we had a bunch of switches on our driver station and certain configurations were for different modes.

Re: Autonomous Switch?
 

The switches are just treated like another limit switch. We always used rotary switches until our programmers took over the task, but simple on-off switches can be used. One switch = two options. Two switches = 4 options.

Re: Autonomous Switch?
 

There are many ways to connect physical switches to your DS if you want to do that vs software buttons on your SmartDashboard. Many revolve around using USB connected I/O boards that mimic an HID class such as a joystick. Or you could just use an old joystick to cannibalize the innards and rewire the button inputs to physical switches on your DS. It'll then show up as another joystick and you just use the buttons as usual.

Re: Autonomous Switch?
 

We use something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Reyann-Arcade...dp/B00UUROWWK/

It let us build a switch pad with over 15 switches, and connect it to the Driver Station.

Re: Autonomous Switch?
 

We code ours into smartdashboard. Then you can do not only buttons, but speed, direction, drive duration, etc, all tweakable.

Makes tweaking auto mode *alot* quicker.

Re: Autonomous Switch?
 

If you go with switch on the robot method, you wire them the DIO on the robrio. Input to ground (0V). The input reads 1 or true when the switch is off and 0 or false when the switch is on. The DIO can be read when the robot is disabled.

AUTON QUESTION?
 

At the beginning of the match it states that robots can hold up to 10 fuel and 1 gear. If your team mates don't want to use fuel in auton can a team then have 30 fuel?

Re: Autonomous Switch?
 

For the past 2 years we have used a rioduino with touchscreen to create an autonomous control panel on the bot.

It gives the programming team additional learning opportunities.

Re: Autonomous Switch?
 

One of our lessons learned, which we will be implementing next year, is eliminating any reliance on the smart dashboard. We'll be putting our auto mode selection on the robot. We have been burned too many times by a malfunctioning smart dashboard on our control station computer. It always seems to happen at the worst possible time.

I hope to never again have this conversation:
"Why did the robot just sit there in auto?"
"The smart dashboard crashed just before the match, and we didn't have time to restart it."

Re: Autonomous Switch?
 

The worst is when, you have one auton you run 70% of the time, but you need a different auton for this match. And THAT's the match where your driver station keeps dropping connection, and you have to use the field's driver station, and SmartDashboard won't load for your robot on that computer, and then you have to go out to the field and move your robot in front of the Sally Port so you can just get two points instead of breaking your arm, and then you don't get the two points anyway. And you lose the match.

Anyhow, not speaking from experience or anything, but consider alternatives for selecting autonomous modes in competition. SmartDashboard is great for practice and development adjustments however.

Coding multiple autons is really easy though. If statements, or switch cases, that call each method depending on the state of a sensor on the robot (e.g. a potentiometer or series of switches), or the state on SmartDashboard.

Re: Autonomous Switch?
 

any info on using the RIOduino to control the auton would be appreciated...

Re: AUTON QUESTION?
 

Question does not belong in this thread.

Answer to your question: No.

Re: Autonomous Switch?
 

Smart dashboard is nice in theory, but in practice, it has its limitations.

Hardware Switches on a USB Joystick simulator is 99% compatible, provides visual feedback, can be changed up to the start of Autonomus (Did you set the switches on the Robot?), etc.

Re: Autonomous Switch?
 

for many years we had switches on the robot that were supposed to control autonomous modes, but I don't recall them ever actually working. The past couple years, we've had different modes selectable on the dashboard, as well as a few control parameter, and it always works...when we actually remember to set them before a match. Being relatively new to the art of drive coaching, it's taken me a little while to get used to remembering to ask about them every match, but we seem to have the hang of it now.

I don't recall ever having an auton not work because of a driver station crash. Although we have had it not work for other reasons.

Anyways, it's a good test of your programming team's skilz....

Re: Autonomous Switch?
 

As you can see, teams develop their own culture and style when it comes to setting up autonomous. Some like SmartDashboard, others have been burned by it.

Our team has tried DIP switch panels in the past, but last year we added one of these to the top panel of the robot:

http://www.robotshop.com/ca/en/gravi...module-v1.html

This is a 12-position analog rotary encoder switch with built in LEDs. We connected this to one of the analog inputs on the RoboRio. Each position on the switch feeds it a different voltage level, so it just took some simple experimentation to decode each position.

The Drive Team then literally dials in which auto mode they want. The correct LED lights up on the dial, and/or they can count the clicks. They really liked this system. The downside being that only 12 modes are possible with one switch, but you could combine this with another one (run auto mode 6, distance setting 11), or combine with something else.

I think we'll do this again, and maybe dress it up a bit to play up the mechanical bits to go with the steampunk theme.

Re: Autonomous Switch?
 

You might want to look into using SendableChoosers on the SmartDashboard rather than a bunch of switches (physical or on the dash). That's what we used last year, and it worked well. You just select the auton you want to run from a list of them on the dashboard before the match.