ok. Here's an idea:

If you read 7.2 in 'The Game' it says that if your HP is not off the field withen 10 sec. then your bot won't be powered up during the autonomous section. Then, it they still arn't off the field in that 15 sec. your bot won't be powered.

SO... now... your human player decides to take a little longer than the 10 sec. :) - What he really does is stand right in front of your tower preventing any alliance from hitting it because it would have to hit him and that wouldn't be allow because of safety. (duhh...) Yes, your robot can't be used during the autonomous peroid, but if the other alliance can knock down the wall, then you've got no problem. Then at about 12 seconds, you run off the field and hit the sensor to let your bot function during the rest of the match. Personally, I think it's a great loophole. Can anyone tell me if they found a rule that wouldn't allow it? (aside from commen cense :))

the game doesn't start (or robot part) until all 4 pressure pads are activated ;). kinda hard to activate it from the field, eh?

Hmmm...

Ok... I guess i could see that. I guess i miss-read the rules. It was sort-of hard for me to think that they would not have thought of that, but i was wishing.

So... I guess that your HP could take an hour, just the robot wouldn't work. :) - Also, the line about the 15 secs. confused me.

-Darn. :cool:

If the HP stays on the field too long and is still not off by 15 secs then your bot will not be activated at all for that match

A big problem in stealing stacks. I don't think any robot will be able to really do it that well considering the fact you have to go over the ramp.

Unless you lift it over the bar :p

Yeah I'm sure someone will think of a way to do that.

Boxes, Ramps and all that fun stuff
 

Jack, I have the solution to your problems, program your robot to sit still during its fifteen seconds, but I think anybody trying to evade this part of the competition is making a huge mistake. Fifteen seconds could win or lose the match for you. Anyways, think of it like this. Your robot w/driver is just the largest most expensive RC car you will ever own in this life. these fifteen seconds, the robot is funtioning closer to a robot.

Robot- a machine that can funtion on its own without continual outside guidance

Well I personally don't like this definition because even some robots get some human guidance. ie. The martian probes

the instant i heard there were going to be autonomous play i thought of the same thing of having multiple options and using one of them after stragety discussion... however i dont think my thought of having switches on the control box will work if we wont have radio contact so the switches will have to be on the bot itself.

No, but you can have switches on the RC. Many lego-league teams do this to have one program do multiple things depending on whether the sensor is pressed or not.

Here's how it works:
Depending on how many variations you need, you have some number of limit switches. One switch for two programs, two for four, and three for eight, etc.
Depending on what program you want to run, you place little blocks in front of the appropriate switches, so that they are always stuck in either the on or off position.
Alternatively, you could just have a small jumper block wired to the RC inputs to do the same thing.

modular autonomy
 

Here's an idea to throw into the pot. I know my team will be using it (I'm the lead programmer - they WILL do it :) ).

Modular autonomy: in other words, lots and lots of autonomy code becomes a program shortly before a match. Our team will be spending a deal of these 6 weeks making tons of subroutines that, when combined with some connecting code, will create a custom program before every match.

Some ideas of modules:

counter (seconds)
directions (forward, backward, left, right, angles?, curves?, other
shapes?)
find boxes
follow line
detect obstacles
?
?
?

Let me know what you think.

Adam! you're not the ruler of the universe! not even of 159! that's me! and i'll crush you with my pneumatic bin-launching thingamabob!

no, seriously, i'm excited about the autonomous period becuase...well, cuz it's cool and a great challenge.

i don't know what it is with my team and modularity...one of the engineers proposed modular wheel/transmission assemblies... :)

lauren

i mean the worst thing that could happen is if you don't do anything during the autonomous period and start out the 1:45 on their side of the field

I'm not sure exactly how the optical sensors work since my team didn't make use of them last year, and I haven't got to it yet, but I seem to recall that at last year's kickoff they were dragging around one of the goals perpendicular to a little robot's (equipped with retroreflective sensor) field of vision, and the robot would turn so that it was always facing the goal. I'm not sure yet how this directly applies to this year's game, but how did they program the bot so that it differentiated between leftward and rightward movement...I assume that there's just some sort of decrease in the sensor output as the distance from tape to sensor decreases, but how do you determine which way to have the motors turn to follow the tape other than by trial and error?:confused: