[Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

This thread is a spin-off of this discussion, and has been started to focus on suggestions for autonomous elements of the game, and other new technologies that could be introduced into the game or kit of parts. While autonomy need not be a part of a specific game, creative uses of autonomous components in any game are sought. For example, a discussion may be presented that proposes no dedicated autonomous time period during the game, but may require that a robot complete a certain function during the course of the game autonomously while other robots on the field are being controlled by their drivers. Alternately, ideas about new drive technologies (anyone know of a source for inexpensive CVTs?) or inter-robot communications may be reviewed.

-dave

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

Change the way AUTO is play. For two years, we had to programmed our camera to find a green color/light. I personally don't like the camera/light use in autonomous or throughout the entire match. Lets see what other items can be use in Autonomous.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

As I see it, the whole concept behind robots is that they are meant to be labor saving devices. They are supposed to mow your lawn, serve you drinks, and clean your house. They are supposed to be largely autonomous and capable of simple thought.

Notice I didn't say anything about "remote control". After all, what good is your butler-bot if it needs someone to operate it :yikes:.

I would like to see more autonomy in future FIRST games. Adding more autonomy would put more emphasis on the 'robot' part of the game.



Now of course the problem with adding more autonomy is that many rookie teams would not be able to compete. The solution to this is to give bonus points for scoring autonomously.

An appealing idea to me is to have a special "No-Man's-Land" in the middle of the playing field. When robots enter this zone the remote control is immediately turned off and robots must score autonomously. Teams unable to score autonomously could score in other non-autonomous portions of the field.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

My thoughts on autonomous:
1) keep it at the beginning, as to allow for the "big finish" ending
2) don't let it become the main focus, incorperating the driver mode is what seperates FIRST from most other robot competitions
3) allow teams to continue using automous behavior during driver mode
example: this year, some teams used the CMU cam to track the target the whole match, so the drivers wouldnt have to aim the bot.
example 2: in 2001, some teams used the gyro to automatically balance on the teeter totter
4) allow for multiple options, not just the CMUcam so teams can choose which technology to use in autonomous instead of only having one option
a) bring back IR (multiple beacons, so teams can use it to determine position)
b) bring back line following

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

Once in awhile when I'm bored in the offseason, I find a battle-bot type TV show to watch, hey it's not FRC, but it fixes my robot crave. The type of robots on that show that always get my attention are the smaller robots that come out of a "Mothership" if we could ever have a game/technology that would allow for that to happen it'd make for a very intresting season no matter what type of task you threw at us. Drive teams would need to be expanded so more and more people can get involved with the operation of the robot instead of the traditional 4 man drive team (Possibly would help for a lot more of students getting involved, even in smaller schools).

The biggest obstical in trying that out would be in getting the technology in the KOP that would allow for it. If that ever happened, it'd be a fantastic season, maybe Vex Equipment could be used for the Daughter bots, only the GDC would know the answer to that question.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

Not just rookie teams - we're going into our fifth year and haven't been able to do much with autonomy, at least not consistantly. I like the way autonomous was this year - keep it short, in the beginning and reward the teams who can do it.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

How about an area of the field thats autonomous only. It could be an extension of the field, if there is room for it at the regionals. It could start at one end of the field and have obstacles in it. Some obstacles could be ramps, speed bumps, going under something, moving something out of your way, or grabbing an object and scoring in along the way. You would enter the starting area and hit a button or switch that starts autonomous. If you finish it without having to take over with human driving to get unstuck, you would get bonus points. Strategy could come into play with another team trying to block from starting at the other end of this "mini" course.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

I think the overall automode points need to stay in control and not make an alliance lose a match because a team can go out and score 70 points in auton. It would be nice to see it like a 2004 automode but with the camera with red, green and blue lights, ofcourse.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

The beautiful thing about autonomous this year, and in years prior, is that you didn't *have* to use the camera, or other sensor if you didn't want to or didn't have the resources.
You could always dead-reckon it if you had to, and I think that needs to stay. I love the advanced sytem autonomous points, but we should keep an easy couple of points in there for the rest of the teams.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

The main problem I see with Auton is the lack of true plug and play sensors and software. This years KOP sensor pack is a great start. What it needs now is simple bolt-on software routines. After all, we want students, not professionals, programming. Our team doesn't have a dedicated software mentor, so it becomes very difficult to get the students working on their own while we're busying with other tasks. EasyC might be the answer, but we didn't have time to investigate it this year.

I think a more useful software option for MPLabs would be more thoroughly commented form of bolt-in software routines, not entire work spaces. Kevin's code was good this year, but the students had trouble integrating his camera code with some of his sensor code by themselves. Any software and sensors should be presented in such a way that students can pick them up and start using them with very little guidance, including students with limited programming experience. Most commercial software packages, like AutoCad, Inventor, Word, etc, have GUI interfaces which make them much more intuitive for novice users.

The mechanical side of the game has become fairly balanced, now its time to start to balance the programming side. Without some improvements here, Auton will continue to be an unbalanced part of the game, not just for rookie teams, but for teams without a lot of programming help, too.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

I believe autonomous should be lengthened a little with more options and opportunities than a single task or two. Allow for multiple different challenges some harder than others, requiring the use of different sensors or combinations of different sensors to meet the challenge.

This way teams that don't yet posse they knowledge and skills for the more complex tasks have a chance to learn those skills and succeed through the simpler ones.

This program in my opinion is designed to enhance and challenge the students. Not everything should be made easy, simple or plug n play. It's the learning, the challenge, the knowledge gain and the creativity that comes from it that is important.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

Uhhh, says who?

I am poking at this one intentionally to see if people have really thought through the implications of limiting the construction of the robot to just students, or engineers, or both, and what that really means in terms of the technologies that can be introduced into the game/KitOfParts. I will attempt to keep this discussion on topic by pointing out that based on who you think will be building the robot, the technologies most needed/interesting/challenging will be different.

Put yourself in the position of the people on your team that build your robot, and ask yourself "what technologies can they handle?" Then try and take the viewpoint of a team that does it exactly the opposite way from your team, and ask the same question. What would be most helpful to either group? What capabilities did you really wish you had last year? What technologies would be particularly challenging (and I note that "challenging" is often a very good thing)?

-dave

(by the way, FIRST has been quite clear about the role of engineers and mentors in the development of the robot - read the transcripts of some of Dean's speeches at the early kick-off meetings)

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

Don't get me wrong Dave. If mentors didn't get directly involved with building the robot, there wouldn't be nearly as many engineers volunteering to help teams. We have fun building too, and I'm all for being challenged. That's what keeps me coming back each year. :) I just like to see the students do as much as they possibly can, and then push them for just a little more.

You made a valid point. Teams with a high level of technological resources will certainly want or need different items in the KOP, than teams with a lower level of technological resources. My point was that there has been a lot of effort on the mechanical side to make rookie teams, or teams with low machining capabilities, competitive. Some of that needs to translate to the software/sensor side. I would rather see teams have the choice of grabbing a KOP sensor package, using a KOTS sensor, or custom solution. Each choice has its pros and cons, and each can get the job done. It just becomes another FIRST lesson in allocating limited resources. We used the KOP transmissions last year, but we chose to go with semi-custom trannys this year, but it was our choice to make, thanks to FIRST .

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a Vex robot and some KOP sensors to play with! :D

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

As has already been suggested, I would like to see the return of multiple autonomous tracking methods. To keep from having too many tracking things for a single target, there could be "easier" tracking objects for less points and "harder" tracking objects for more points (for example, a line to follow only leads to a 1 point goal, while a light to track leads to a 2 point goal).

If an autonomous bonus is awarded again next year, it should be cut down some (probably 5 points instead), especially if there is a tactical advantage like this year. The 10 point bonus could often be overcome in the playoff type matches, but in matches where teams were struggling to end the score 17-12 the one alliance who got lucky and happened to get one ball in the corner goal pretty much instantly won.

I actually thought the software support was far above anything in the past this year, and more than enough for our team at least (we were lucky enough to have 2 programming mentors and a 7 man programming team though). The only thing that could be made better for next year is to have a sensor version of the default code which contains all of the sensor code written by Kevin in one project where they are already integrated to work together. Having done all of the combining of projects and files for our team, I know that teams with only one or two programmers would have a heck of a time trying to get all that sensor code to work in one project.

I do love the support we get though. Nothing beats being able to change the camera search parameters, especially when a year ago we were using default search patterns that we had trouble understanding what it was doing.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

I like the idea of a section of the field that is Auto-mode only. With the exception of putting your robot out of auto-mode for a small penalty, because if the robot goes off the track it should, it might not come back without manual control.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

In Triple Play, you could use dead reckoning to get the hanging tetra and/or use the one tetra the alliance was given to cap a goal. Yes, getting the vision tetra involved, well, vision.

The problem with auton in Triple Play was that the rewards were not enough. 26 points were theoretically possible - drop both hanging tetras, get the vision tetra on the goal in the middle of the field, and cap the center home-row goal to generate a row. But how many vision tetra cappings were there all season? In reality, your alliance was doing good to get 5 points in auton, a rather insignificant number in the whole game.

Aim High had a very meaningful auton reward - not only the 10 point bonus, but playing defense first. Winning auton put you in a very good position to win the match. Maybe the pendulum swung too far this year, but it certainly made auton an important feature in the game. And there were multiple things to do - high goal via either camera or dead reckoning, low goal, play defense.

We need an autonomous mode with real rewards for the teams that master it. There also has to be something for those with lesser programming skills to do. IMO, this year's game provided more of those kinds of options than Triple Play did. Hopefully future games will continue the trend.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

I would like to see two to three completely different possible scoring methods for auton.

One that any team can easily do with dead reckoning. This would be the low hanging fruit that any team should be able toreach and worth the least points.

One that requires a level of sensor feedback to accomplish worth a moderate amount of points. This should be attainable with software out of the box so that teams who put the effort in can accomplish this.

The third should be a pie in the sky real challenge that has a corresponding bonus to make it worth the effort for the teams to do this.

I know that first has tried to do some of this over the last few years but I like the idea of challenging the veterans but still keeping things accessible to the rookies and mid-level teams. This tiered objective system would allow teams to work towards a goal if they saw it recur over a few years. Also you could illuminate each with a different color vision target like we saw on Einstien this year.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

Adding on to what Pete brought up...what if there were 3 seperate start times? Maybe give the hard task 20 seconds to work with, the middle 10 seconds, and the easy 5 seconds? You could even penalize for interacting with the other scoring opportunities before your task is complete.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

Why not do it in reverse, and force the teams going after the harder task to do it in less time? Sounds like a better challenge to me.

I think FIRST has hit a good point with autonomous this year; namely that it matters in the game. Autonomous could help you get a few extra points the past few years, but truthfully 90%+ of all matches were completely unaffected by what happened in autonomous mode. Games have gone from "oh, we don't need to worry about autonomous, we won't be down by more than 3 points" to "we need someone to try to block them or we'll be starting down 15 points and they'll get to start on defense". Autonomous may have actually had too large a bonus attached to it this year, but I think it's much easier to lower the bonus a little than to continue trying to increase the importance of it and hoping it will finally affect the outcome of the game.

Autonomous is forcing teams to look at even more of an all around robot; you need good drivers, a well built robot, good programming, and some good alliance partners to win.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

I think that limiting it only to students could hurt FIRST. Some teams have different resources. Some schools don't have any programing classes or students interested in programing. Our team has a limited interest in programing (most people want to build, its more exciting than sitting at the computer) but we use the opportunity to teach the interested students about the basics of programing, why its important, etc. Our students do write code for the robot but autonomous would be difficult without engineer involvement. Not to mention, it gives the engineers an opportunity to show why they went to college, what they have learned and how it applies to our jobs.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

I disagree...Let's apply some examples of a staggered start system to Triple Play.

I would make the easy task scoring the hanging tetra (either knocking it down or placing it on top). This is a relatively easy task that doesn't need a whole lot of time to accomplish. Look back to when the game was played, and you'll remember that there was quite a bit of downtime after teams hit the hanging tetra.

I would make the medium task be pick up off the autoloader (1 or 2) and score on the side goal. This is more complex than the previous task, but it can be done without fany vision/sonar/etc... systems. Everything you're trying to accomplish is at known positions on the field.

I would make the hard task to score the randomly placed vision tetra on the center goal. This would require some form of sensory system to seek out the vision tetra. Once it collects the tetra, the robot is in a semi-known position. The goal is in a known absolute position, but that would have to be combined with the current position, to determine where to drive next. This makes it more complex.

I would allot 20 second to the hard, 15 seconds to the medium and 5 (maybe 10) seconds to the easy. I think this cuts down on the amount of downtime in the match. Maybe you could go so far as to skip the first 5 seconds if nobody's attempting the hard task.

If you flip that around, you would have a robot that was halfway to picking up the vision tetra at the end of autonomous, and a robot that knocked the hanging tetra down and sat there for 15 seconds. I definitely think that the harder skill would need to be allocated more time.

I definitely agree with this. Not only that, but large movement was required to accomplish the task, keeping things interesting. Triple Play's hanging tetras required such little movement to accomplish that sometimes you couldn't even tell that the robots even moved.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

I don't think downtime is going to really be removed by that; sure some robots will start later, but you still have 15 or 20 seconds for the whole autonomous to run (and forcing teams to announce what they will be doing before autonomous will give away their goal, not something I want my opponent to know for their defensive autonomous).

If you keep them the same time then the difficult tasks are more difficult because it's more to do in the same time; by increasing the time for harder tasks you remove a large part of the difficulty from them (time is usually the biggest problem in autonomous mode).

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

Who said there was defense? The only reason that defense was so prominent this year is because the field was wide open and it was possible to have robot interaction. 2005 didn't have defense because robots couldn't interact (with maybe the exception of somebody blocking a middle row goal). 2004 didn't have defense because the task at hand was inherently offensive. 2003 was the same way...the only real way to defend other than to drive under the bar or chase stacks was to get to the stack first.

I agree that time is usually the problem, but why not allot just enough time for teams to actually succeed at the task at hand? In 2005, if there were another 2 or 3 seconds, I think that there would have been some center goal capping. I would much rather watch a game where teams are successful at doing something autonomously than watching a game where they almost get it done.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

This seems like the right area to talk about this, so here it goes. It would be nice to have more and different sensors in the KOP. I think if there are certain motors that are known to get a little warm if put under the wrong strain, then it would be nice to have heat sensors that you can attach to them for monitoring them. I'm not sure if hot motors are a big problem, but they do heat up pretty quickly when they are pushed to far. Also there could be a heat source in stead of a light for tracking during the game.

This is also a stretch, what about a small LCD screen that is used on the controls or something. This could replace some of the warning lights on the control panel. If theres enough room for memory, it could also be used for other things, like a heads up display with specific information about your robot, real time scoring, using a camera to look around, and other things I'm not thinking of.

I don't know how much these would add to the cost of the KOP, but they would be cool to have. It might be a couple of years before they are cost effective for FIRST to put in the KOP, but I will just have to wait.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

It would be neat to have stereoscopic vision and advanced pixel comparison and image processing capability. Unless at intersections, you won't really find a nice green light out in the real world.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

Some how I see a camera like that a little too expensive for the Kit of Parts. Not to mention since half or less of teams got the camera working with just a green light, it would probably be even worse dealing with a more complicated camera.

On the note of heat sensors, why not bring back the current sensors? I'm pretty sure they were included in the 2004 KOP. LCDs would be nice, but they'd need something so we could output effectively to it.

Defense was actually something I liked about autonomous this year. I want to watch the "superb" autonomous modes out there not only score effectively, but compensate for the interference of another robot and still score effectively.

In 2005 they should have increased the overall time a little, but that was by far the most difficult task for autonomous (this year had a stationary target). This year was good though. I think as long as a reasonable time is found for the task every year then things are good for difficulty.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

I want to see some easy way for teams to determine their exact position on the field. It would greatly expand the possabilities in autonomous mode for those teams that don't want to build an INS.

There are lots of options: a commercial Local Positioning System, fixed ultrasonic emitters around the field (used for triangulation), overhead camera data fed to the robots (ala RoboCup Soccer), a gradient on the carpet (ala RoboCup Jr), etc.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

While I also wouldn't mind seeing a set included in the KOP, I don't recall seeing them in the 2004 KOP.

This is going to sound a little silly, but knowing how many teams (mine included) like to take the "Who needs sensors?" approach to autonomous for whatever reason, would it be possible to get a smallish patch of carpet in the kit to test how the robot handles in that oh-so-critical first few feet of the program? The difference between standard-issue school tile floor and FIRST field carpet is somewhat significant.

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Keep autonomous big. Keep it REALLY big. This year was good, but it could be MORE. And KEEP robot interaction in auto.
While rookies and some teams may suffer from big auto modes, with auto modes that enable and even promote interaction by having big rewards and close starting positions you can create simpler auto codes that can alter the autonomous portion of the game. A simple "drive straight" code could change whether or not the opponent managed to hit a bunch of shots in the center, or none. It allows for basically a lesser function autonomous to acheive an important goal. You don't even need an advanced manipulator to accomplish it.
Another cool idea would to be follow FVC's example. Many people have talked about having auto portions of the field. FVC had two seperate games, autonomous and operator controlled. Your rankings in both games were averaged to form you overall seed, then you picked your alliance partners and played the operator controlled for the elimination rounds. The auto game also had slightly different rules (the field was divided into 4 sections, one for each team, center goal was worth 2 points, no ownership of goals, and only 30 seconds instead of 2 minutes). I would have liked to see it have the same rules though, with the exception of maybe staying 30 seconds instead of 2 minutes. Interaction and alliance partners would have made interesting strategy discussion, along with deciding which goals to pursue, as you couldn't adjust to the opponent's strategy afterwards. Scouting and pre-game strategy would become incredibly important.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

I'm not sure what year the current sensors are from, I just know we have 2 current sensors sitting around from either 2004 or 2005.

How did you get an INS accurate enough to not be off by 2 meters in 15 seconds (this was what I was expecting to potentially get from the high end Analog Devices accelerometers)? You know, they could do that nice field position thing if they bring back those IR beacons from '04.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

If the field is as open as this years was, then during autonomous could there be a max Feet Per Second rule? The max FPS could be 8-10 FPS or something, but that all depends on the game and the field setup. I was watching web cast's of qualifying matches of Nationals and in three straight matches my teams robot was knocked over in autonomous. :ahh: In the first two of those matches it looked like there should of been a high speed ramming called. Later, threw some communication with team members at Nationals, I found that anything goes in autonomous, even high speed ramming. I really haven't talked to anyone in person since before Nationals, so I might be interpreting it wrong and please correct me if I am. It's really hard for teams to stay encouraged when you tip over three straight matches.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

That sounds like it may be a center of gravity problem with the individual robot. Tipping/disabling/damage in autonomous was very limited from my expierience.
Also, I beleive there were still high speed ramming calls in auto (or there should have been), but there was a generic lack of them the whole season in both portions of the match.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

I never saw a ramming penalty called once during any autonomous portion I saw of a match, but I also never saw any matches where I thought robots were moving fast enough to warrant it. As for a speed limit, I think that should only apply if you hit someone at that speed; there is no harm in charging at an opponent 20 ft/s if you slow down to 3 ft/s before you hit them.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

Both of these statements worry me. I see not having students interested in programming as a challenge to overcome, not a challenge to circumvent. As a student programmer I find the idea of a mentor doing the programming sickening. I'm decent at programing and I've put much time and effort into doing the best I can. However, I've done this under the assumption that I would be competing with other students not mentors. I believed that my skills would be put to the test based on the skills of other teams not their mentors. This is my first year of FIRST, but I have already put in large amounts of off season time towards the programming side of things. I would hope that my efforts are not in vain because I am competing with adults.

To return to topic I feel that auto should be both longer and more competitive. This year I felt it was simply a matter of unloading ten balls with the greatest accuracy possible and perhaps a small amount of movement. That was all ten seconds allowed. I would like to see 40 seconds or more of auto mode just to incorporate wider aspects of programming. For example a team after unloading its ten balls might have went into a roving pattern to pick up more balls or returned to reloading distance of its team. As a programmer it saddens me to see auto taking up only a small portion of the game.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

Don't worry about it. Since '04 our robot has been programmed by a professional software engineer, we've never had anything impressive, and it was an uphill battle to get any code changes. Remember, adults are also often busy, reducing the time they can program. He would often say something to the tune of "We don't need that" when a new bit of code was requested. And it was full of errors, plus his code had no comments. It was still useful that he did it, which freed students to try and finish building the robot on time, but his code easn't superior in any way, shape, or form to the other robots this year, most of whom, I assume, were student programmed.

As for autonomy, I would like to see three wildly different starting areas to make teams come up with either a brilliant all-purpose autonomous, or multiple ones.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

Please, the topic of mentor vs. student lead teams has been beaten to death in multiple other threads, and this is just a small example of it. Each team is free to deal with programming how they so choose. The FIRST "big wigs" have made it clear every year that it is okay to be totally student led and it is also okay to be mentor driven, or anywhere in between.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

Two Ideas:
A)Multicolor lights:
Red, Blue, and possibly Green lights are randomly assigned at the beginning of autonomous. Suppose that there were 3 goals lined up and you had to use vision to determine your goal - otherwise you may score for the other team! The green could be either 0 or a lesser point value, or perhaps the green would always be in the same position so that teams that are unable to use the camera (due to weight/time/programmer experience) could still contribute to their alliance via dead reckoning or simply tracking the single color.

B)Reward for quick finish
Similar to Coopertition in that if your robot is able to complete the autonomous task quicker than another robot, possibly including a pressure pad to show that you have finished, then more points would be awarded. (Imagine points for placing a tetra on the center goal then returning to your home zone).

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

I like this idea because it has both a simple solution and a more complex one. To throw an additional twist in there...what if the red and blue goals switched after 8 seconds (assume 16 seconds of autonomous). This would force elegant solutions to not score for the other team. The only problem would be scoring...this year would've been tough because of the way that the balls had to be cleared from the goal by hand.

I liike this too, but would need to be a stipulation of not getting the bonus unless the task was actually complete. Probably doable with a multiplier since not completing the task would result in 0 points.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

Now, this requires some explanation... but it's purely a concept-based idea. I personally have been hoping for a manipulator-important multiplier/bonus for awhile. Some teams designed very interesting manipulators for the tetras, but it wasn't necessary. The concept below is based as an idea that could be used for a multiplier/bonus thing and/or a last-second finale (providing incentive for teams to have tall reaching manipulators that can also modify the scoring object). The main thing I would like to see though is a scoring object that can be manipulated in some form, where it can make a certain number of points without manipulation (to provide a simpler task for teams) or more points to create a manipulator to perform the higher-point task.


This example shows a square that has a hinge in the middle of it's top start. Teams would have to grab the object from a stand (similar to tetras) from the side of the field and then place them like those child-block toys into a goal hole on the wall. They can place it into the lower, non-manipulated hole for a lower bonus score or the higher goal in which the object must be pressed in to form a triangle to fit into the hole. Once you fill the hole though, you obviously can't put another one in. Thus, if a team is good at this they could technically fill both holes on their post for the low and high points. Retroreflective tape could assist robots in lining up the objects encouraging an automated method to do it. As for the material of the object, a number of things could be used, and I don't think it would be any harder for a team to assemble than a tetra.

Note: I wasn't sure which thread to put this in (sensors or scoring objects) because I think this would highly encourage sensors as well. I know this idea is pretty complex, but I'd love to see manipulated objects and this is just one idea to throw in the massive hat that becomes the GDC idea hat. Good luck GDC, can't wait to see what we get next year.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

I'm not sure if this one can be implemented cheaply enough to work in FRC, but after reading this thread, I was highly intrigued by some of the concepts in the video mentioned within.

Suppose that as part of the competition, teams could also (optionally) field a smaller, all-autonomous robot in addition to their regular robot. I imagine the robots being slightly bigger than an FVC robot in dimensions, and could possibly dip into the FRC kit motors if you were feeling frisky. (If you went this route, teams would still only have, say, two Fisher-Price motors for all of their combined robots.)

For example, imagine that a large supply of balls (or perhaps more valuable balls) was on the field in front of the player stations on each side of the field. A barrier to keep the FRC robots at bay would run across the full field, just at where the field gates are. Human players could introduce their team's autonomous robot into the blocked-off section to move the balls into their choice of position on the field. To keep with the safety mindset, robots would be required to have a two-second delay after being given instructions to start, to give human players time to push the button and get clear.

Hey, it could work, right?

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

How about being able to find ferrous object hidden either underneath the carpet or hidden in boxes.
Keep the camera - maybe in a few more years we will be able to actually use it. We are getting closer.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

Thats a really good idea. Have scoring stands that have three doors on them. A release allows 1 object to be randomly placed between the three openings at a time. If you have an object detector, then you have ~ 100% chance of finding the object. However, if you don't, you may still obtain objects, but you have ~ a 30% chance of getting one.

I still thinks this puts a damper on the sheer volume of scoring we got to see this year though. That element of the game gave both drivers and spectators a treat, and I would love to see the next game include it as well.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

Dave,
That is a grate idea! Our team and I have put a lot of thought into a better autonomous mode, much like what you are describing, using many sensors and other ways to input data and interrupt it, and also at the same time to ad void the action of other robots. I think this is a grate idea, the only problem would be for the rookie teams it a lot, but it would be a good challenge that requires lots of thought!

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

I agree that this autonomous mode is the thing that separates authentic programming with RC robots. I would like to see more autonomous time maybe up to 20 or 25 seconds.

I have now started my second team and to see a new set of Rookies reminds me of the basic programming struggles. Three things that we need to remember and help Rookies and young teams are these:

Rookie teams have a lot of reading to do and need to be pointed toward good information and given directions and how it can be applied. The code should have a lot of obvious and descriptive notes embedded into it.

Rookie teams need to see old code, with explanations of how and why it worked and what it did. These could be codes shared by teams with details and pictures of their robot. Gracious Professionalism should weigh more than secrecy of code.

Rookie Kits should get a Dongle. Yes it is simple to make, but Rookies are too busy catching up that they don't realize how important it is to be able to practice that autonomous code, and how to do it at home safely.

We don't need to give all the answers but we do need to provide Rookies and young teams with the resources that allow them to know what questions to ask.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

First off, welcome to ChiefDelphi! :)

Moving on though, I agree with you in that the autonomous mode should be something meaningful. Also, a longer autonomous mode would be awesome, however, it all depends on the type of challenge that is being presented during the autonomous period.

I remember that at some of the 2005 off-season events which I attended, rarely any teams (if at all) used the ENTIRE 15 seconds of autonomous (usually it was only 10 seconds at max). And at kickoff this past year, when they announced that there whould be only a 10 second auto. mode in which the winning alliance won a ten point bonus AND was able to go into their defensive period first, many of us thought that 10 seconds was too short. But everyone took up the challenge, and it turned out to be a very viable time frame in which to either play defense, or drive towards the the goal, shoot and score. A large amount of teams created successful autonomous modes, and the autonomous period in Aim High turned out to be one of the most exciting (and crucial) periods of play.

So if there should be a 20-25 second auton. period, I believe that that task at hand should probably be more complex and take a longer time to complete.

I also agree with your idea to put a dongle into Rookie kits (or all kits if they want) because even though they are pretty easy to make, as you mentioned, many teams do not make them. I cannot tell you how many teams asked to borrow our dongle at the LV regional this year. But it would be a nice addition, and hopefully encourage more rookie teams who might not normally program their robot autonomously to do so.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the high speed ramming penalty was for defensive autonomous robots who rammed into stationary robots. If both robots are in motion, then i guess it's just the luck of the draw.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

There's the rule about robot contact/ramming. So what I infer from it is that as long as there is no robot damage/tipping caused intentionally by a defensive "juggernaut" robot during autonomous, no penalty will be assessed. At the regionals that I attended, no penalties for ramming in autonomous were given (that I can remember). However, I do not know what the calls were at the other regionals/divisions at the championships.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

Give a wieight bonus (30%?) to teams that build a "true" walker.

This means that robots that walk, without the use of rotating cams or wheels (that touch the floor), can wiegh a total of 156 lbs.

This would be a cool rule because it would encourage innovation in the drive train, which for many teams has gone virtualy unchanged since the creation of FIRST.

It would also spawn a wide range of unique designs never before seen or imagined.

Re: [Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions
 

^ I really like this idea, but I'd be worried that the walking system would eat up that additional 30% and much more, without much of a benefit. So, there wouldn't be much of a motivation. Maybe a game too that gave walkers an advantage along with it would work nicely.