Testing Autonomous at Competition
 

For many unfortunate teams, they will not be done with all their autonomous code before ship today. How do teams plan to test and tweak their autonomous code at competition? The pits are small and there's almost no way for the robots to run around. Perhaps you can do it outside at nationals but I see no way of doing it at regional.

testing? oh.. you're supposed to test this stuff? I thought it would work every time flawlessly the first time around! :D

Actually.. our team built a prototype that handles fairly close to how the real robot handles, and of course since our robot has very few other feaatures besides driving its all good until we get to the competitions and discover that the robot's respond differently.. lol. And, of course we just use a switch to simulate autoomous mode...

I am not sure but I think wireless debug radios can be used in Practice rounds, or at least I hope :)

Wireless
 

People seem to have a hard time with this concept. No wireless transmissions of any kind in the competition/pit areas other than the official modems on your robot/oi. Exceptions are basically things FIRST can't control, such as AM/FM radio, other commercial/official radio, such as fire/police/FIRST officials/GPS and Cellular traffic. All communication between people on the field area must be verbal and nonamplified or visual. Its really that simple. You may tether your robot in the pit area, thats about it.

I realize that no wireless comunication other than the offical modems rule but what about during the practice rounds. This year is the first time I would consider this because the robot shipped and I am far from a completed autonomous mode. This way I could test a program then download a corrected version and test is with something like auton_mode = p1_sw_top or something. It wouldn't induce full auton_mode but I don't check the OI inputs during auton_mode.

Well first you can put your bot on blocks to get the general idea of whether it works. Then you have parking lots and other spaces. Being local, I know all the hidden open spots in VCU Seigel Center. Then there's always practice rounds

we plan on using the edubot kit for some debugging. since our robot is not a dead reckoning robot nor a line follower we can do some testing with the edubot kit of some of our autonomous programs. Though some of it is dependant on the robot so we will be using our practice rounds to their fullest potental.

Not that Beach 'Bots will be there to benefit, but you might consider coordinating practice sessions at these open spots -- or at least making a map so that others can get as much practice time as they need.

you probably want to test it the way it will be in the real competition. Make a “competition port dongle”. Basically it’s a 15 pin solder cup with a short piece of wire coming off of it. On it, you can add fancy switches if you like, but I just made mine in a hurry, so it only has bare wires that you short together. If you look on the innovation first web site, they have a document to that explains the pinout of the competition port. On there, there are a few things, if i remember correctly, there are 3 described functions. One is the disable, autonomous activate, and practice mode; which enables the use of multiple channels. There are also some other pins on here that they don't tell you about. For one, i think power can be supplied through the competition port. I went to a practice match were they did not do this and they had external power supplies at every station. The problem with this, is that people have no reason to use the competition port. One could just unplug the competition port and still run their robot. Also, as a side note, if you plan to use the function/pin labeled "practice" which enables multiple channels, you should restart the operator interface WITH this pin shorted. After it starts, and the channel is changed, you can remove the practice pin if you like.

I know
 

yep, our team finished the robot basically on the last day... still some mechanical problems too! I guess we have to use the parking lot to test autonmous

Already built the competition dongle, it was easy. Was paranoid so I redid it so it was completely clear the wires weren't touching any excess pins. Everytime I used that thing I worried a little.

907
Brian Lim