Re: Most... um... "entertaining" autonomous.
 

Our robot did something "entertaining" during an early match in St. Louis. We had just finished up our drivebase PID tuning, and had a simple "drive forward six inches" mode selected as a final test. Apparently, one of our wheel encoders developed a broken connection, so the software acted as if one side of the robot was nailed to the floor. What we saw on the field was this:

The 'bot deployed the arm, did at least two full turns in one direction while managing not to scrape the gripper against the field boundary, stopped, did it again in the other direction, ran diagonally across the field, barely missing both alliance partners and the rack, then stopped a few inches short of crashing into the field boundary on the other side of where it started -- not intentionally, but because autonomous mode was over.

"Drive forward six inches" had turned into "drive forward enough to measure 6 inches even with one side not moving, turn in place trying to correct the measured yaw error, overshoot because the robot is actually spinning twice as fast as the software thinks, turn in place the other direction trying to correct the overshoot, get the correction right this time because the too-fast turn is compensated by a too-fast correction, then take off at full speed trying to correct the accumulated position error." That was what I eventually decided was going on in the program, anyway.

Re: Most... um... "entertaining" autonomous.
 

The most entertaining autonomous of all-time is 229 robot Irrational at FLR last year driving forward and suddenly turning on a dime and firing all of it's balls at Steve.
Comedy gold!

Re: Most... um... "entertaining" autonomous.
 

Jason, that certainly is a standard to aspire to. We had a post-hook dance which we kept under wraps until we were sure of our autonomous. Since it was inconsistant (due to the field lights, not to the programming), it will have to stay hidden. Probably all the better. I will keep the video for future study and when the programming crew needs a project.

Re: Most... um... "entertaining" autonomous.
 

I like the one you guys did at Purdue better. Andy told me the plan was to go around the rack to the backside but when your robot went screaming into the spider leg at full speed I thought the whole armory shook. What was amazing was that the whole top of the robot didn't come off. Great construction.

Re: Most... um... "entertaining" autonomous.
 

Thanks, Scott...

We had this automode, code named "Back in Black". We would back up, full speed (13 fps), stop, and then look for the light. The plan was to place a tube on our opponent's side of the rack. The only time we would ever plan to use it was if we were opposed from a robot that did not move (would not want to ram them), and our partner was going for the middle column in auto.

So... during one of our Q matches at Boilermaker, our drive team decided to try this. The robot went full speed, backwards, and hit the left side spider legs. The spider legs resisted the impact and tipped the robot over. Either the drive team did not aim the robot correctly, or the robot veered to the right too much while backing up.

The head ref was ticked at us for that one, and said that if our drive team did it again, they would be DQ'ed for field damage.

We did not run that mode ever again, even at the Championships.

I have still not seen a video of that match. If I find one that is digital, I will post a link here.

The unfortunate thing about this was that a reporter from our hometown newspaper just happened to walk in to the arena at this same time as this match. While we explained what exactly happened, and what "automode" was, he could not understand that this was simply an aiming error. In the next day's paper, the writer talked about our mistake in how we wrote the code, and how the drivers should have chosen to drive during this part of the match. He just could not get past this dramatic wreck and didn't understand that we actually meant to send our robot backwards that fast.

AB

Re: Most... um... "entertaining" autonomous.
 

Some pretty funny auto modes, and swamp almost did take us out that one game.

Re: Most... um... "entertaining" autonomous.
 

That wasn't "entertaining" at all from the team's point of view!

The drive team had never set up the robot for the "Back in Black" mode before, and apparently misunderstood the instructions to put it right next to the field boundary and give the rack plenty of room. I think they tried to aim for a near miss of the rack...and the 'bot failed to miss it. I had also told them it would work best on the right side of the field, but maybe the fact that the robot drives backwards made left and right ambiguous.

We got lucky. The big CIM motor took the hit; if it had been on the other side of the field, the sheet aluminum camera shield would likely have been twisted badly and could even have damaged the pan-tilt assembly. Holding the keeper up at exactly the right height seems to have saved the arm when the 'bot clotheslined itself on the spider leg and took a tumble onto its front. We were amazed to find the gripper had survived with no damage to speak of.

Re: Most... um... "entertaining" autonomous.
 

In Florida, 342 didn't have time to finish our tracking program before our next match. So, one of the freshmen said, "hey, just make it do dounuts for now!" Our programer said in a manical way "OK!" With me being the driver, I knew nothing about this till I saw it jump forward and start spinning!:ahh: The announcer called it "342's destracting autonomous dance." After Florida, we made banners and stickers with the "Happy Feet" pieguins and read, "SURE. YOU ROBOT CAN SCORE, BUT CAN IT DANCE?!"

Some rounds, teams would try to ram us in autonomous, but not one could touch our dancing bot.:D

Re: Most... um... "entertaining" autonomous.
 

There was one match in Vegas that Pink had gotten to the rack but they were off by just a bit. The other alliance robot had a defensive mode and they nudged Pink just enough to line them up and allow them to score. It was a beautiful sight to see.

Re: Most... um... "entertaining" autonomous.
 

Galileo Match 31
http://www.thebluealliance.net/tbatv...p?matchid=4248

Our programmers had given up on getting a scoring auton to work, so they tried to make a defensive one work. The idea was to ram the rack, back up, and repeat. Unfortunately the timing didn't work out too well. As you can see, the only thing that kept us from tipping was our back bumper. Meanwhile, every ThunderChicken in the stands was laughing while the drive team was panicking.

Comedy Gold!:D

Re: Most... um... "entertaining" autonomous.
 

Thank you for the compliment! We knew that the Auto-Correct feature was good for something! It was quite a site to see! :yikes:

Re: Most... um... "entertaining" autonomous.
 

Besides being funny, it had to be down right scarey to watch.

Re: Most... um... "entertaining" autonomous.
 

Our robot accidently drove in a arc to the other side of the field and just happened to run into our opponents robot that was about to score a ringer... The bot was suposed to drive about 10 feet. Good times.

Re: Most... um... "entertaining" autonomous.
 

Edit: you beat me to it Mike D: I have no idea why you guys were laughing, that was quite possibly the scariest 15 seconds of my life.

"hey guys lol we made a new auton, the pwm value is 217 lolol YAY"

Re: Most... um... "entertaining" autonomous.
 

There was a match on Galileo (though i can't remember the #), where the robots were enabled for auton while the referees were still on the field shifting the rack.:ahh:
No one was hurt and the robots were stopped, but it was pretty funny watching the refs scatter.