Re: Post URL to your autonomous mode
 

If its not too late to post videos... Here is ours which unfortunately were all (technically) failures. However, it consistently saved us critical time by flipping down the gripper and backing up a little bit. Plus, it was always suspenseful and somewhat entertaining to see how close/way far off the bot would be each match.

As for technical details, our method is almost identical to team 25's:

At UCF, we had planned to use the camera to run some decent (but mostly un-tested) autonomous modes, but when it caught fire during practice day we never had the time to figure out what exactly was wrong.

The entire robot was re-coded/ported to EasyC between UCF and the Championship event, and a single Vex ultrasonic module was mounted just above the rear bumper, and a magnetic read switch from home security systems was mounted on the arm base and arm chain to determine when the arm was in the correct place. The code is fairly simple, and basically had two cases: 1) Too far: Drive forward 2) Too close, back up. Variables were used to determine the ideal distance, and the window decreased each program loop until it was as close as reasonably possible.

With no way to point the robot, it was sheer dumb luck, and we simply were not as lucky as team 25. On the positive side of things, we determined that the camera's *wiring* burnt up, not the actual camera. So hopefully we will have something more advanced set in motion come Mission Mayhem time :).

Google video preview: http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...97900448188076
High quality download ( http://marsbot.org/files/Auton07.wmv )

Re: Post URL to your autonomous mode
 

I am working on putting the videos together. So it is not too late. Good tries. I have decided not to include any FIRST non-competition videos. But I have not thought to include unsuccesfull tries. Let me think about it.

I think you gave a great effort. I know we could not have put together our autonomous in the midst of competition, so I commend you.

This video has been a lot of hard work and being with a team (1902) that their season seems to never stop (met last night) there is not a lot of time. I am getting close but not quite there.

Re: Team 1629 goes to the far side of the rack at PARCX
 

In talking to others, I have decided to include only videos from official competions else the project would never end and it puts everyone on same playing field.

But let me say, you did something we wanted to do.

Re: Post URL to your autonomous mode
 

Here is what I have so far on the video. I put all of them together have about 30+ robots.

Now the problem I have had is that the video is 9.5 minutes and 130mb. Youtube has a limit of 10 minutes and 100mb. I can't seem to figure out how to shrink the video more so that has held me up.

I am on the road a lot this summer, I am in Korea now and back to Orlando for six day and then in Colorado and California for the next month.

If anyone has ideas how to either shrink the video it would help or post it somewhere besides youtube. I am using Vegas Movie Studio 6.0.

Thanks

Re: Post URL to your autonomous mode
 

I don't know what the restrictions are for FirstTube, but this would seem to be appropriate: htp://tfirsttube.org

http://www.putfile.com/ has a limit of 200 megs, so you should be ok. You can also upload to google video if you download their desktop uploader.

There are also likely options in your video editor that allow you to decrease the video size or quality to make the file size smaller.

Re: Post URL to your autonomous mode
 

Thanks to Joe of 330 I am using putfile for the video.

See the video at:
http://media.putfile.com/FIRST-Autonomous-modes-2007

Please do the following:
1. Make sure I have the right bot number with the right video piece.
2. There is one section I do not have numbers, tell me what the bots are and I will change that.
3. I will add robots I missed but I need to be able to download the video and it must be in mpg mode, I had trouble with some of the AVI videos. It must be a video from an official 2007 competition, no off season or practice sessions.
4. No I don't want to change your robot video for another video segment. I spent a lot of time looking at a lot of videos. It takes a lot of time and I have very little of that. so hopefully you will be happy with what I put in video, tried to use the one you suggested in emails.
5. If you want the video let me know especially if there is someplace I can upload it so everyone can have it.
6. If someone wants to edit this video better let me know, video editing is not my strength.

Once we get the final video I will post it to a new thread in CD.

Re: Post URL to your autonomous mode
 

I believe the two teams in the segment you don't have numbers for are 191 and 1038.

Re: Post URL to your autonomous mode
 

Sorry to bump up an old thread, but I think this is the best place to ask this question. All of you who had butt-kicking autonomous modes last years, what did you use? Which sensors, custom circuits, and special logic? What pointers would you have that generally lead to a quality autonomous mode?

Thanks

Re: Post URL to your autonomous mode
 

#1 best secret. Hardware done by end of week five, that gave us a week to practice driving and auto mode. Auto mode just takes time. So dependable hardware and done with enough time to spend lots of time perfecting it.

#2 we had a 3/4 size field to practice auto mode.

#3 we used easyproC for fast developing and more people could do it.

#4 we proto typed lots of sensors using vex to when we go the hardware we didn't start from scratch but knew what we could do and not do with sensors and had routines working.

For 2007 we used the camera. 2006 we used gyro mainly. Previous years we use IR sensors and wheel encoders. Really depends on the contest. We have also tested sonic sensors.

Suggest practice using vex with all the sensors to get a feel for them.

Re: Post URL to your autonomous mode
 

Very interesting. Thanks Doug. Obviously we'd love to (and hopefully will) have the hardware done by the end of week five. We're planning to do our own thing with a coprocessor this year, so we're starting it early to give us time to work out kinks. We'll definitely try to get some time on a practice field and test as many sensors as we think we might use, so we can use them if we need to.

Re: Post URL to your autonomous mode
 

In 2006 the hardware guys saw how important the auto mode was. So they decided that it was not an option to finish by week 5. They kept the pressure on it and cut out things to make it done by week 5.

I have been in seasons that it wasn’t even finished at the 1st competition and took all of the practice day, then we had times we finished just before time to put it in the crate, then last year finishing at end of week 5. I tell you the team was so much more ready for competition by finishing by week 5.

Re: Post URL to your autonomous mode
 

Thanks Doug. As a programmer, I hope they keep making autonomous more interesting and important, as that's the most interesting part of the competition for us (that, and designing good control algorithms for our drivers). I guess I'll have to try and ask our build guys to do their best to finish (heh, as if they don't already do), so we'll get as much robot time as we can.

Re: Post URL to your autonomous mode
 

Can you take the 2007 robot and do some of the programming? Assuming you have the same base. Try to do as much as possible before the week 6. Our programmers worked the whole time, but especially week 6.

Re: Post URL to your autonomous mode
 

We can. Better yet, we're working on a practice drive train right now, that will hopefully closely resemble the competition one. It will have an entire IFI control system with all the electronics, and we will be using it to program before the real one is done, and probably do some work on our co-processor solution before the season starts.

Re: Post URL to your autonomous mode
 

What are you using the co-processor for?