Re: Autonomous Longer????
 

Actually you'd be surprised. Many spoilers were placed and taken off during matches at many of the regionals and in every division in Atlanta too. You can't say keepers are not worth anything because they have won many games for many alliances.

Re: Autonomous Longer????
 

I went back and looked at our team videos and scores. I don't have the figures in front of me, but as I remember it made the difference in 1-3 games a regional. When you are playing for the top positions, one game makes the difference. This is not theory but actually looking at the games played. We might have lost a regional championship because the auto mode failed and one more tube and we would have won. It was that close.

Plus when other teams are sitting there during the 15 seconds you are scoring and that makes you stand out and teams want you and will pick you. As you said the winning teams had auto modes.

We were in Einstein this year and ask our team, auto mode helped us get there.

Re: Autonomous Longer????
 

I don't think it should be extended at all. The short amount of time gives us a challange for the programmers to overcome. I think that whatever the time given for autonomous at the time of kick-off is enough.

-Sam

Re: Autonomous Longer????
 

I'm not saying keepers arent worth anything. I know they couuld make a big deal in a match. However if you compare Aim high's autonomous mode impact with Rack n Rolls, Aim high easily wins. If you got the most balls in you got a 10 point bonus in addition to the balls you scored, and you started on defense first so you could collect balls. That autonomous was huge, and I dont think Rack n Roll comes close.

Re: Autonomous Longer????
 

I'd be happiest if they just did away with the whole thing. Making it longer just means more time spent watching robots do nothing or stalled against a barrier. I've never understood the purpose behind the autonomous period.

-Local

Re: Autonomous Longer????
 

Sorry Andy, but I have to disagree. The purpose of autonomous is to inspire people who interested in programming, particularly autonomous robots. It is a completley different challenge than programming for the operator control segment.

Back to the topic, I'd love a longer autonomous period. I would very much prefer to see autonomous play a larger role, as it's my favorite part of programming the robot, and I would love to see the stakes raised.

Re: Autonomous Longer????
 

Without the autonomous period, our "robots" would really be giant RC cars. By definition, a robot has to be able to autonomously sense and react to the environment around it.

I would love to see a longer autonomous period (between 20-30 seconds). With a greater emphasis placed on autonomous mode, teams will be forced to attempt something in autonomous if they want to be successful. Just look at FTC/FVC robots, which have much longer autonomous period than FRC. Most of these Vex robots have amazing autonomous modes. (Sure, there are other factors at play, but anyone can test autonomous algorithms for their FRC robot on a Vex robot.)

This year, autonomous was unfairly weighed so low as to be judged by many teams as being not worth the effort. If autonomous is made longer, and the stakes (point bonuses) raised even higher, you'll see a lot more active robots on the playing field during those opening seconds of the match.

Re: Autonomous Longer????
 

What I'd love to see is a way for the robot to signal to the field control that it is done with autonomous. Once it signaled it was done, it would be disabled. Once all robots signaled they were done, or the time runs out, the next phase could begin.

Once you have this ability, you incorporate it into the game with bonus points - say you get 1 bonus point for every second remaining in the autonomous period at the time you signal you're done, OR you can attempt to complete some task worth more points than just saying you're done right away. This gives teams a choice - either attempt a task attempting to get points, or signal you're done and get guaranteed points. It also helps the competition because if all the robots are sitting doing nothing, the match automatically moves on, but if some team is moving then it lets them have a chance.

Re: Autonomous Longer????
 

An idea that I had while watching the competitions was what if they got rid of all autonomous at the beginning of the round and stuck 15 seconds at the end. And have the robots do an endgame strategy autonomously. This would be a whole new twist requiring robots to orient themselves on the field using camera and other sensors.

Re: Autonomous Longer????
 

I always thought it was funny that as you move up in FIRST there is less autonomous. FLL, the program for the youngest kids is FULLY autonomous. You would think it should be the opposite.

Re: Autonomous Longer????
 

Ideal to me would be:

20 Sec Autonomous
2:00 Min Driver Control

I really wish they would go back to games like Aim High and Triple Play (im sure there were more), where you had a choice of what to attempt in autonomous. It made it more interesting, especially to watch...

Re: Autonomous Longer????
 

More time... I'd love it!

But I think it would add a few more requirements for the hardware on the FIRST robots. More time means more time to gather more data from sensors... more data volume from sensors usually means more processing and more processing complication to corellate multi-sensor input and make an intelligent response to that data. Maybe one of the new Microchip PIC 32-bit processors?

I know that we had a fantastic autonomous mode that used scanning ultrasonics, but it took 0~2 seconds too long to complete... partly because we had 2 seconds worth of scan+process time to solve out a (horrendously complicated) trigonometric solution, and noise filter/bandpass all the data.

Along with more autonomous time... and I know I'm just dreaming here... it would be awesome if NI could offer one of its field point vision boxes at a discount to FIRST teams. I might point out that NI vision in various forms is used extensively in the fully autonomous, bipedal RoboCup competition.

-q

Re: Autonomous Longer????
 

I don't think there is a requirement to have driver control during the match. There is also nothing saying that you can't automate functions. If automode is too short for you, try automating functions.

Re: Autonomous Longer????
 

I think that the time limit is not the problem.

They should make the autonomous worth a lot more and give us a time limit that is appropriate for the task.

Re: Autonomous Longer????
 

Personally I think autonomous could be longer if there were more objectives. Look at the 06 game. you could score low, score high, or even just block another bot. I think just about everyone had an autonomous that year.