Re: [Official 2005 Game Design] Autonomy Discussions
 

my goal is to eliminate the driver!
i have stated this many times to my team.

i look forward to a game with 60 seconds of autonomous mode.

the game should include a whole variety of tasks that can be done in autonomous. many of these should generate points directly.

the reason for inaction in the past, was the lack of choices in autonomous tasks. give us a gaggle of tasks at the start of the game, and we can show how an autonomous machine can get some of them done.

Jerry W

Re: [Official 2005 Game Design] Autonomy Discussions
 

Here's a weird idea.

Have a switch of some kind. Autonomous mode will continue until a robot pulls the switch or until the match ends.

Re: [Official 2005 Game Design] Autonomy Discussions
 

For those auton mode purists that want drivers gone. If you are going to do it then lets push the envelope. Let's have 25 differentsenarios chosen randomly by the computer. You do not know what the senarios are and won't until you see them in competition. You start the clock and try to accomplish the goal to get the most points or complete a task. All in auton mode.

Really let's not remove the best part of the games and that is the human interaction with the robots. Humans are much more adaptable and interesting when it come to problem solving.

Re: [Official 2005 Game Design] Autonomy Discussions
 

Honestly, I think that Autonomous mode is too short. 15 seconds is not enough time to do anything really significant or clever, and leads to way too many teams ded reckoning. There were only a handful of teams that actually followed the line using sensors or used the IR beacons. Even just expanding it an additional 5 or 10 seconds would help.

Also, open up the allowed electronics list, and make it more like the mecanical stuff (you can get anything under a certain dollar amount, except for certain items). Let teams use the CMUCam for object tracking, or digital compasses to find their heading. They're not expensive, just unavailable from the "approved suppliers." As it is, line or beacon tracking can be quite tedious.

The LPS (Local Positioning System) idea isn't bad, although it may be a bit pricey, but there are other ways of doing it that may be easier and cheaper (for example, RoboCupJr uses a field that is a giant grayscale gradient, so by looking at the floor, robots know how far down the field they are).

Eventually, I'd like to see the opposite of what we have now, with the first 1:45 being autonomous mode, and only the last 15 seconds being human controlled. We should either get away from the "130 pound RC cars (except for the first 15 seconds)" mentality and build real robots, or do what MIT's 2.007 competition does, and call it a design competition instead of a robotics competition.

I know people will say "think of the rookies" or "a typical view from team with one of the best autonomous modes," but I can assure you that if teams devoted the same amount of time to electronics and programming as they did to mechanical stuff, and designed the whole robot with autonomous function in mind, everyone could do it. Heck, I just went to a RoboCupJr competition where middle school kids built autonomous soccer playing robots with little to no adult help. If they can do it, surely we can too.

Re: [Official 2005 Game Design] Autonomy Discussions
 

If they they let us use the Robovision in the competition and gave us an autonomous challenge (such as a maze) where only a really small robot could succeed (opening into the maze is 12"x12"), then we could have the main robot under Remote Control and the Mini-me under Robovision control.

This would potentially (under the current 2v2) put 8 robots on the field at the same time. If Mini-me ends up in a blind corner, bumping into the walls, there's still plenty of action on the main playing field.

Keeping the 130 lb limit and the 30"x36"x60" limits would require teams to make the choice...5 lb autonomous mini-bot or extra manipulator thingy.

Some teams might also use the Robovision on their main robot as an extra processor. Maybe the two could communicate via the program ports.

If you look at the maze idea that I posted earlier, the main robot could drive to the entrance and deploy and activate mini-me. If mini-me can reach the center of the maze and depress the right switch, 50 points for your team. Or, it could activate some area of the playing field (like the ball drop), that would benefit your alliance greatly. Or, you could get 1 QP for the team whose switch was pressed (4 switches) (QPs being the same as this year win = 2, tie = 1).

Re: [Official 2005 Game Design] Autonomy Discussions
 

In general, I am not a huge fan of Automony in FIRST games. It tends to to a bit boring since nothing happens much of the time. I after 2 years I still have yet to see a robot do anything worthwhile in the final 5 seconds of the autonomous period. Making it longer is not a good idea.

I do think that Autonomy gives great advantge to teams with good programmers. I think that autonomy can have a nice place in FIRST games if properly applied.

I think that FIRST should make autonomy optional in the following way:
Each driver station has a button which causes the robot to exit autonomous mode when it is pressed. At the beginning of the game, robots will automatically enter autonomous activation. For each second that a team remains in autonomous, they recieve a bonus. As soon as they press their button, normal driver mode begins and the bonuses stop acruing. This way, teams that have great programmers may be able to rack up a big bonus right away, other teams who have no programmers may be able to forgo any bonus in order to utilize this time in some other way. I think this would add an interesting element of tension to the opening seconds of the game. The length of the total allowable autonomous period could be limited if desired to limit the maximum bonus.

In terms of sensors....we do not have enough budget or allowable electonics sources to do all we desire to do. In 2004 I bought a gyro, two encoders and a few potentiometers and I used up my electonics budget. Good parts cost more than we can afford. Why not just include electonics under the $3500 cost umbrella and not have a separate cost limit? It's not as if spending $1000 on electronics will help you win, you still have to know how to apply the technology and have a good robot to use it on. We have source deregulation on mechanical components, why are we restricted to only 3 electronic sources. They are good sources but they really don't carry any robot specific hardware. Amateur robotics is actually quite a large industry and there are many companies which make things which would be perfect for FIRST teams, if only we were allowed to buy them. Check out
www.robot-electronics.co.uk , www.totalrobots.com, www.active-robots.com

A few key parting points:
1. Autonomy does not have to mean driving around. Any machine function which is self regulating is "autonomous". Some of we old timers have had autonomous features on our robots for many years, long before the past two years of "forced autonomy". Often, automating a function is the best engineering solution as it eliminates the variablity of the driver and can make up for limited practice time. Whether balancing a bridge, climbing on a puck, or knocking a ball off of a Tee; automated ways of performing such actions is and always will be the best choice whether "forced autonomy" remains in the game or not.
2. Time based movement is NOT autonomy. In order to be deemed autonomous, robots must be making decisions on what to do all by themselves using inputs from sensors and control routines. Simply turning on the drive motors for a few seconds in order to run some sort of pattern is basically "point and shoot". No decisions are made by the computer once the routine is begun, thus it is not "autonomous".

Re: [Official 2005 Game Design] Autonomy Discussions
 

I, personally like this idea, but what if this mode was randomly started. I maen no one knew when it would start. I could start right off the bat or start it could be the last thing that happens in the match. This would definitly be nerve-racking for teams, but it would also open up more possiblities for programming (ie. sound recognition).

OR..

we could have a shield that blocks the view of the drivers, and allow them only to see what the robot sees via camera and the shield drops only after 10 seconds after auton mode ends, but if the driver does not respond within those 10 secs. auton is extended for another 10 seconds. :D

Re: [Official 2005 Game Design] Autonomy Discussions
 

I personally think it would be interesting if you can switch between autonomous and driver mode. If you can complete and task in auto mode it could be worth more than if done in driver (like if you capped in auto last year, you would get 3x or something like that).

I'm against eliminating the driver all-together (maybe cause i am a driver for my team :) ) but I fell that the human elemet creats excitement to the game, always have to think on the go.

Also, I would like the auto mode to not count towards the 2 mins of game time as it did last year.

Re: [Official 2005 Game Design] Autonomy Discussions
 

Most teams are having problems with autonomous mode now. Why does everyone think that having it at the end would be any good. What we have now is an exciting finish to most games. If we move autonomous mode to the end it would become very boring.

Re: [Official 2005 Game Design] Autonomy Discussions
 

I agree with that too that each team be required to run auton at least once, but at time of their choosing. Sure the length of auton would be standard, but by having multiple auton phases with driver control to separate the auton runnings this would bring the lego league and First robotics closer together, because when you think about it Lego Leauge competitors have only auton to work with there is no driver, just build and modify for each task. where as in first we build for the desired task and use auton if it is only nessecary.

Re: [Official 2005 Game Design] Autonomy Discussions
 

Ok, I seems to have taken over the 15min limit before CD logs out user that don't use cookies, so here is the shorter version:
I approve of the ideas of an autonomous that is longer and seperate from the driver time (3 min matches with a 1 min auton?) and I think that something you cant sacriface for the auton in any way is a central location worth a massive amount of points that you can end up on (Stack attack was, I think, the most "TV-worthy" of all the games that I've seen because it had some level of mandatory contact and it was easier to explain than this years). I think that the option of remaining in auton mode for points is in interesting idea, but needs some polishing.
Ideas that I had include a 3 or 4 beacon system of IR sensors all on different channels/frequencies so the robots can triangulate their position on the field and then with a gyro determine angle. you would need lines or something else though, so teams that do not want to use the beacons have an alternative. I really liked the way that teams could have different objectives and sensors, instead of all needing one type of sensor to be able to do a particular task. If you have a method available to determine location and orientation, you make it possible to move autonomous to anywhere in the match, though I personally think that the beginning is the best (otherwise teams will have operators that step back maybe slower than others, just because they're a little slower (a.k.a me as the off-seson arm operator) and that would lead to putting the refs in the unenviable position of determining if a -5/-10 point deduction should be made. having *me* step into the booth a little late just means I'm a little late, not coasting the team any points or the refs any more stress than they already have (I dunno how they do it, but someday, I'll figure it out and volenteer too, and I know I wouldn't want to have to ref that particualar because its too vauge in most cases).
Things that I personally would not want to see leave FIRST include, the autonomous mode and the rest is for a different thread ;) .

~Michael "Greenleaf, Pokey, The Crate Guy" Greenley

P.S. I'm sure I forgot something important in there...no, that's not it...right...42.

Re: [Official 2005 Game Design] Autonomy Discussions
 

Things I like/would liek to see:
* Have MULTIPLE autonomous objectives of different difficulties. This would mix things up a bit and add some strategy to autonomous. Some teams might only be able to complete only one objective while other might be able to complete multiple objectives. Perhaps completing different objectives might give teams an edge in different ways during the human control that would be useful against different types of opponents.

*Continue the tradition of relatively simple autonomous objectives, but give a reward for doing them faster.

*If Multiple autonomous objectives were to be introduced, it might be a good idea to extend autonomous a bit.

Things I don't like/wouldn't like to see
*Autonomous at any time other than the beginning of the match. Teams have a hard enough time with autonomous as it is. If it were placed at any time other than the beginning of the match, nobody would do anyhting. We would get bored watchign robots sit there and do nothign round after round.

*Autonomous time counting toward game time

Re: [Official 2005 Game Design] Autonomy Discussions
 

I would like to see autonomous become such a central and important part of the game that people dedicate as much time to it as they do the rest of the robot. I think those first 15 seconds could be just as exciting as the rest of the match.

Re: [Official 2005 Game Design] Autonomy Discussions
 

This isn't totally about Auton mode, but I would really like to see something added to the field/kit to help teams make robots that know were they are on the field. This could really open up the possibilities for many teams.

Also, I really like the idea of the team haveing control of when the Auton mode ends and getting more points for the long you stay in Auton.

Matt B.

Re: [Official 2005 Game Design] Autonomy Discussions
 

Also, about putting autonomous at the end of the match. Most of the time the end of the match is the most exciting, during this year, a team is fighting to get onto the bar in the last 15 seconds and such and such. Putting autonomous at the end could ruin that part. But then again, it makes things harder, and makes dead reckoning even less appealing (which to me, is good, I like robots that take in information through sensors and use it to navigate)

my second point is about the concept of people who stay in autonomous get time bonuses. Now theoretically, couldn't the robot just sit there in autonomous or wave a flag (so it is doing something)? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose? It could work, but it needs more thought on how it could work. Good idea though.

Oh yeah, don't get rid of the driver, its what makes this all fun. If you took out the drive you just took out most of the excitement. Having human drivers keeps things spontaneous, changing all the time, and allows the ability for a quick change of tactics. It wouldn't be much fun without the driver. But that's just my opinion.