Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

Any team capable of doing this will get mega props from just about everyone. I believe that Autonomous could be what sets apart two otherwise equal alliances - due to exponential scoring, that one extra keeper might end up mattering a lot.

Also, as with the others, I'd also pay $50 for a dinner with Dave. Sounds like Dave could make much money (and eat for free) if he wanted to :P

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

EDIT: Okay, Philbot did get this. But the point remains.

AAHHH! I swear you're all missing the point of having a robot that's successful in autonomous mode. I would've expected everyone to have learned this lesson last year, but perhaps I'm mistaken. It is vitally important to offensive robots for one reason and one reason only.

You don't have to restrict the operation to autonomous mode.

If a robot is capable of homing in on a light and successfully scoring a ringer, why on earth wouldn't you take advantage of these abilities? Do you honestly think your human player is going to have better luck at this from 40 feet away on the opposite side of the field, looking through a rack festooned with ringers? I understand that it might not be able to compensate for a defensive bot, but you must admit that a robot that can easily score in autonomous is more likely to succeed than a human when the human can't see what she's doing.

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

[quote=Kevin Sevcik;551921]
You don't have to restrict the operation to autonomous mode.
QUOTE]


One of my managers, who happens to be in charge of our automation efforts, has a saying. "You don't really understand a process until you automate it". I have found this to be the case in all of the automation efforts I have been involved in. When you have people in the loop, they compensate for what they percieve to be happening, many times without knowing it.

One example is automated drilling of a stack of different materials. For years we had been drilling a stackup containing titanium, carbon epoxy, and aluminum by hand. When they tried to automate the drilling they just could not get a good quality hole from the machine.

Now remember, we (Northrop Grumman) drill tens of thousands of holes per week in difficult materials, we should know something about drilling holes. Finally they went back and instrumented the drill the mechanic was using to drill by hand to find out what was really happening. It turned out that that mechanic was adjusting the pressure on the drill in accordance with the sound the drill was making. The mechanic didn't even realize he was doing it. A few new sensors, a little programming and viola!, good clean holes (and here's the important part) EVERY TIME.

So we learned a little more about a process we thought we knew everything about.

I would suggest that if you can't get a ring on autonomously, you really don't understand how to place rings. If you do understand how to do it autonomously, why would you do it any other way? Because if you really are doing it right, it will work every time.

Now whether any team will get that understanding before the Championship is over is a completely different question. The addition of defending robots also complicates things because they introduce things you can't understand completely in advance.

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

I just don't see autonomous being as big a part as last year. Last year they made it possible to do several things (dump in lower goals, shoot, block) this allowed less experienced teams to do things that were still useful.
Now you not only HAVE to use vision, you also pretty much need to have a very accurate setup to actualy score the ring. Assuming that rack is shaking all over the place it might be impossible for teams that do not have a good manipulator design (that can stabilize the rack)

Secondly autonomous does not really give that much of an advantage.
The randomized rotation of the rack makes it so that you do not know whether 1 or 2 lights will be visible, furthermore you DO NOT know which of those two lights your alliance member will pick to go towards, because of this robot collisions may occur. I just don't see 3 different rings being scored very often.
Lastly 3 rings on the rack doesn't pose that huge of an advantage,

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

Ok, here is where I differ with you. First off even an unexperianced team can still do useful stuff with autonomous even if they are not scoring (and experiance has nothing to do with it, it's all skill and knowledge) such as setting up to collect ringers when autonomous is over, etc,etc, etc... Next, the camera can track more than one target, and the targets are 90 degrees apart, so if it can see two, it drives forward until it only sees one, ta da! Next you forget about how little the shaking of the spiders actually matters, if you do the math and take into account that the keepers are beveled, then you find out that you have a little more than 6 inches of play in any direction. And lastly, if you set up keepers during autonomous, then they can't be blocked, but can be used to make chains during teleoperation...

My 2 cents...

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

I'm with Dave on this one.

Sure, I doubt it will be three rookies who accomplish this together, but any 3 teams who can collaborate before a match and each have a successful mode for keeper delivery will definately be able to pull this off.

I have faith in FIRST team members across the world that they can co-operate enough to get this done. :)

And I'll add in it can be any 3 teams scoring on any 3 spider legs but it has to be in auto and all 3 have to be scored. :)

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

I am going to agree with both of you on this one. Anything can happen, especially on a FIRST field. Plus I think Dave might want some help to pony up with so many people willing to take the bet ;-)

On A separate note I agree with a lot of whats being said that autonomous isn't as important this year. I think the GDC might have done it for a reason because, as stated, autonomous was quite frequently the deciding point in many matches last year, so it made it harder for rookie teams and other teams that were programing challenged. Sure there was Easy C but from what I am told you can only do so much with that.

This year I think they are trying to find that balance for autonomous mode that makes it neither too important that its a complete deciding factor yet not too minor that teams blow it off.

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

I think the group is correct, that autonomous has been devalued from previous years.

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

wow, i cant believe people are disappointed with this auto mode. This auto mode is HUGE, you get such a huge advantage if you have an alliance that can three on there in row.....all you need is one on each end you already have a row of 5. It's a lot easier to protect 2 spiders than to protect 5. I like auto mode this year...alot

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

See - this is what I was saying earlier.

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

I have had a successful auto mode for last four years except for 2005 when the team didn't deliver a working robot until it was way too late.

Let me tell you this will be a VERY difficult auto mode. Having three teams do this will be extremely rare.

Last year we could score half our points in auto mode, this year it is just another tube.

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

What is the difference between scoring half your points in auto mode or doubling the score of a row by having one extra ring in that row? The way I see it, if you have a row of 8 due to a keeper placed in auto mode, that keeper was worth 128 points. NO ONE could score 128 points in auto mode last year.

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

All of this is theoritical until game time. I doubt we will see 8 in row except against dead players. Five in row will be tough we will see.

We are going for auto mode. I hate seeing the robot sit there for 15 seconds. I think we will succeed at it. Hardware build looks good in their approach and auto mode helped so much last year hardware guys are motivated to have it built and give us a week and half for driver and auto mode.

My only point is that auto mode is a lot less than last year but more than other years.

I do hope I am wrong and it will be significant. I do think it will make a difference in many rounds.

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

I envision lots of teams (rookie and otherwise) building a robot that scores on the bottom, or bottom two, rows very effectively. If for example the Blue alliance were made of purely middle- and bottom-scorers, then the top row is open to the Reds and Reds alone. This gives the Reds an opportunity to score their three keepers on the bottom two rows, not only adding to their score, but blocking huge points by the Blues.

Here's another aspect of autonomous you may have not considered. Each alliance has 18 ringers (9 on field, 9 in stations). Equally dividing them allows 6 ringers per robot. The Teleoperated period is 2 minutes in length. Assuming the robots don't do any Endgame activities, that's only 20 seconds to obtain each ringer (half of them being on the opposite side of the field) and score it, with 5 other robots zooming around and most likely very limited vision by the drivers. Having fifteen free seconds to A) score permanent and potentially exponential points; B) play defense; C) position your robot for a quick start when Teleoperation begins - that's not something to sneeze at.

Re: Advantage given by succesful autonomous mode
 

Good points. I told the team a very successful routine is place a tube and turn and get ready and in place for another one once the game begins.

One fun things about FIRST is seeing what creative methods teams come up with to solve the same problems.