Autonomous Strategies
 

I have spent hours and hours trying to figure out strategies for autonmous, for our our robot, and I was wondering out of the strategies that I have thought of, which ones have other teams thought of. (The above categories are the 6 general categories of strategies I could think of, please give details )

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

Drive!Straight?turn!LEFT!? :D

(Seriously, start with moving. That's pretty much a necessary skill. After that the sky's the limit, but you've got make sure at the very least you drive away from the scary people holding the orbit balls!)

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

If some teams use WindRiver and others use Labview, it will be difficult for alliance partners to assist with programming for basic moves in autonomous. The programmers will need to know both systems in order to help. I see this as an interesting twist from prior years.

We use Labview, if our alliance partners are using C++ it will be difficult for us to assist in moving in Autonomous as we have no experience! Just my $.02

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

:eek: Ohhhh dang, that puts more stuff we programmers got to do, not that we had anything to do in the first place :rolleyes:

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

So here's an idea:
Program all of the ideas you thought of. Have a panel of switches (3 of them = 2^3 = 8 possibilities) so you can set the robot to whatever autonomous mode you want for that particular match, after talking to your alliance partners about strategy.

Our team has done something along these lines for the past two years, and the flexibility is great. I wish I could take credit for the idea and/or the programming, though.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

Well last year, our team's rookie year, I developed the autonomous ideas, and programmed them. :cool:

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

That's an awesome skill to have... something I should probably learn eventually.

Also, I'd like to recommend that you talk with your team's strategy sub-team about your ideas for autonomous strategy before you start coding them, just to make sure they mesh with the way they're expecting to play the game. :cool:

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

We're thinking of having multiple evasion programs where we would take a different course each time. Maybe if we get the time we'll play with the camera and see if we can pin down an opposing trailer.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

I wish our team had a strategy team, or something that resembled a strategy team, but basically, right now strategy is me :yikes:

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

Shoot balls at the human sitting behind you trying to score, while running away. :p

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

wouldn't that be considered a distraction, or something...

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

We're looking at an auto mode that basically drives away and uses the flags on the trailers to avoid hitting anything. We briefly considered trying to actually score, but decided that this would really just put us in a position of weakness(due to the difficulty in actually scoring autonomously and the stopping and restarting that would be neccesary to accomplish this)

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

Wow, our team actually thought of this :ahh: ! However, we figured that shooting in a trailer would actually be easier then avoiding a trailer, especially with the unique floor surface.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

Is anyone just going to go straight, and hope not to get hit? ;)

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If we go for "drive straight," I'll hope we get hit so I can try out our angle correction software.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

Due to the severe lack of bonus points in autonomous this year, we've decided to push most of our programming resources to assisting the drivers in teleoperated mode. So Autonomous will just be moving in the most unpredictable paths (away from opposing human players).

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

We will be lucky if we even have an autonomous mode, therefore we will be happy to move anywhere from where we start.

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You should at least do the drive straight and crash version, otherwise you're a sitting duck, right at the other team's outpost.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

Just straight, if I estimate the angle right you would hit into the outpost so you should throw a couple turns in there, maybe instead of just purposely getting hit just to test software, just use the angle corrector, but use another strategy and if you do other then straight, then you will be hit most assuredly! :D

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

I'm really glad this thread finally evolved into a poll...

Our auton will seek to simply position ourselves in the correct spot for our strategy. As the regional progresses, we'll tweak it further for automatic target tracking. Since we could conceivably start in one of three configurations with one of four objectives, we're simply working on positioning ourselves for those objectives now and actually acquire the objectives later.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

Systems don't have to be programmed in the same language to cooperate. I don't think you're going to be making major programming changes between matches. Programs written in VB and C++ can get along happily on a single PC and different kinds of computers running different operating systems and programs written in a multitude of languages can get along quite happily on the Internet. You're going to arrive at the competion with a catalog (hopefully) of possible autonomous maneuvers and you'll need to confer with your partners to decide with one is most suitable for that match.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

If experience serves as any kind of example, the last thing on earth you want to be doing is trying to make any type of major code change between matches.

I suspect you need to come to the table with all your autonomous modes programmed, and work out who will do what from there....

Has anyone else considered training the camera to chase the blue shirts of the judges.... and firing balls at them? We want to impress them with our accuracy :D .

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

In the six years of playing FIRST I have always had a good autonomous mode plan by now. But there are too many unknowns at this point to have one figured out.

Biggest issue is how well do we move and how well can we turn.

Once we know some of that we will work on a good auton modes.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

autonomous we will basically move and shoot. Our movement won't be complex unless somebody else wants it to be, other wise just get away from the human player, and score, 'shrugs', the firing part is hard enough

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

It seems to me that there are two competing defensive strategies in autonomous mode. On the regolith, the robots will accelerate at less than a tenth of a g, so a good payload specialist (PS) should be able to get two or three balls into the trailer before it moves out of range. One strategy is to drive straight away, but this leaves the trailer exposed in the best attitude for scoring by the opposing PS. It might be a better strategy to spin on center to put the trailer behind the robot as quickly as possible and then back away from the PS. IF the robot is five feet tall, it will block the trailer from all but the highest arc shots.

Spinning quickly on center is problematic, especially since the trailer wheels will be on carpet in the starting position. This maneuver might best be performed by first pulling the trailer up onto the regolith, and then spinning on center 180 degrees.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

Some sort of randomizer would be nice. Opposing teams would not be able to predict where you might go. However, this randomization might leave you in an unstratiegic spot. I.E. crashed into a wall. A controlled randomizer would be alot better. Maybe some DIP switches could feed input as to where you start at so a properly controlled course could be randomized.

One way for this to be done would be an "on-the-fly" randomizer. This randomizer would determine direction and how long it will go in that direction when it is needed. The program could check approximate postion to where it might turn out to be when it completes the "turn," modifying the values as needed to turn out not to crash into the wall.

Another way would be to plan out so many turns in advance and attempt to take said course. The disadvantage is when it gets bumped it diverts the robot off-course. The on-the-fly version could have an accelerometer to detect when it gets bumped and re-randomize the course as needed After impact.

This, however, is a very intensive algorithm and would take alot longer to debug than a simpler autonomous mode. However, I will try to suggest this to the team and subsequently attempt to program it if they agree.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

This is what we will do. We will have various auto modes to select from and use them according to the need, all this planned ahead and decided by drive team.

In my experience 80% of the teams have extensive autonomous plans and only about 10% show up with auto modes that work well, mainly because it takes a working robot and a lot of time to perfect it.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

I think that we will see a LOT less autonomous robot scoring than this poll would suggest.

1. Shooting from a moving robot into a moving goal is a HARD problem to solve. It is doable, but expect to spend a lot of time solving this challenge that may have been better spent elsewhere. Many teams will want to sit still as they shoot, making them an easy target for human players.

2. There is no bonus for scoring in autonomous mode versus teleop. Your driver will almost certainly be a better shot (with whatever targeting software you give him) than the robot by itself. The driver knows "when to pull the trigger". The only advantage in autonomous mode is that you can victimize teams with nonfunctional autonomous modes (that just sit there). As the season - and the regionals themselves - carry on, there will be fewer and fewer of these machines.

3. The size of the goal relative to the ball means that even good shots will sometimes not end up scoring.

4. It is far easier to write an evasion program than to write a scoring program.

5. The irregularities of the orbit balls makes consistent shooting a difficult proposition. With poof balls, robots could hit the same square inch of target every time. With orbit balls (many of which will be broken), there's a lot more randomness.

That said, I am 100% sure that some teams will score in autonomous mode, and will do it well. But the plurality of teams responding to this poll, I fear, will discover the issues above.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

In the past when your team alliance partner didn’t have an auto mode it don't hurt you, at least not much.

My fear this year is a teammate that does not have an auto mode will hurt you because for 15 seconds they just sit there and collect balls, maybe all 20.

So you could have a great auto mode but your other teammates don't move and you start the player driven time with up to 40 points scored against you.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

Totally agree. I expect that our team, and other veteran ones, will quickly go from team to team after receiving the match list in order to install at least a rudimentary autonomous mode.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

We did that in 2008. We won a match because we helped our two allaince partners they both drove over the 4 point line and that 8 points was enough for us to win the match. They were very excited because they had never moved during auto mode.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

We are a rookie team but the basis of our idea is be able to select one of three things

1. Drive to the center of the arena and spin! (Donuts anyone)
2. Drive to our alliance corner (fetal position)
3. Activate our wings and fly away (Farva defense)

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

On the flip side:
These resemble conditions where you may not preload your own robot:
1. scouting shows opponents have not even a "run away" automode.
2. your team has good throwers, can throw 20 balls in 15 seconds.
3. your robot does not have autonomous scoring capability
Therefore, no preload; let your human players throw all 20 balls in the first 15 seconds.
Followup driver strategy is to recover loose balls, move the empty cells

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

I want to know who honestly thinks they're going to be precise enough with a camera this year to make some balls in the trailers. its going to be fairly difficult to complete that task.... i'd say focus on everything else rather than autonomous

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

If you can get a shooter that is accurate in autonomous mode, theres no reason you can't use it during the teleoperated mode. :)

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

There are several levels of play and a strategy for each.

1st level is the average regional eliminations. Where most teams do not have an auto mode and even moving can be hard for some.

2nd level is the final rounds of the regional, where most do well and most have some sort of auto mode.

3rd level is the division level finals at Atlanta. Where all do well and all have auto mode.

In 2007 we had the privilege of winning our division and going onto Einstein. That is where you see the exceptional teams do exceptional things, like shoot in auto mode. Not many can do it, maybe less than 1 out of 100, but things like that get you to Einstein.

Where in the first level it might now be worth trying to shoot at opponents, better shots later. But at the 3rd level that might be your best chance to shoot and make it.

Just some thoughts, I do appreciate this discussion.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

My team, Beach Cities Robotics, is working to do that. We scored in shooting balls in autonmous mode in 2006 and we think we can do it again with active trailer tracking. The robot will approach the nearest opposing alliance trailer and when in range, it will shoot. The camera is mounted to the shooter turret so it's azimuth is always locked on. For driver controlled mode, as in 2006, we may also have a head-up display for the co-driver so that when the robot is in range and locked on he can shoot without looking at the control board.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

Someone suggested earlier that you make multiple autonomous modes, which is a great idea because if the camera strategy, for example, doesn't work the way you wanted it to, then you can always switch to another, tested, autonomous and see if you get results that are actually ones, that you are looking for. :]

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

1529 honestly expects to make at least 80% of all the attempts from the robot.
Regrettably, the same cannot be said for our Payload Spec1al1st.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

So, what is the ultimate auto this year? 7 balls in? We like to give programers something to shot for. No pun intended.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

I believe the most effective autonomous mode this year will be the one that results in no moon rocks being scored in the trailer your robot is pulling. There isn't anything the robot can do in the first fifteen seconds that can't be done later in the match, so scoring seven moon rocks quickly isn't imperative.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

All of this randomizing will give new meaning to the question "So why did it do that in autonomous?".

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

our team plans to adopt a few differnet automous modes. The main one is to go track a oppnents trailer with a cam and shoot

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

This.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

No ball in trailer? Sounds impossible. I don't think it would be so much your auto mode but lack of good ps shooting. OK, maybe alittle of both.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

While I believe we'll have a nice targeting shooter on our robot, I don't see the value in tracking down a trailer to score in it during auto, since it may be too close to a Payload Specialist. Say you score 5 of your 7 moon rocks, but the Payload Specialist puts in 5 or more into your trailer.

So anyhow all you tracking and scoring robots in autonomous, please come after us, our robot will be in the corner getting loaded (and will load up your trailer too!).

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

I would agree this is number one, as few as possible moonrocks in your trailer during auto mode.

BUT this might be, especially at higher levels, a prime time to put cells in your opponent.

But I am holdong off until I see how well our robot moves before I come up with a strategy.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

We will be counting on those teams who have a lack of auto, or a fairly simple one that just drives away from the Human Players and try to track a stationary robot and get as close to it as possible.

Of course, that will only start after we spend 3-4 seconds running away from the payload specialist near us.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

It may be impossible to get away from a good opposing PS shooter in autonomous mode quickly enough to avoid one or two moon rocks scored. Once away, however, the question remains, what to do fro the remaining 10 seconds or so. All three alliance partners can't go to the outpost to get an empty cell, but I think one should. The two others could lurk in their home corners until the driver controlled period starts. If a robot has good autonomous tracking and shooting, then it may be worth the risk to pursue a robot, even to its friendly outpost or fueling station because as long as it points in the right direction, a five foot tall robot will make it difficult for even a good human shooter to score.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

I like this suggestion. But some improvements might be 1 bot goes to empty cell, and the others could get into a good position for teleop, because I'm not so certain that your alliance corner is where you want to be at the beginning of teleop.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

Another thing the robot could do, your robot could use the camera to aim at the trailer and head to ram it. This not only would throw other people's autonomous modes off, it would set us up to score with our basket. This is probably what our team will do.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

so far my team is going with the "RUN LIKE HECK" strategy during autonomous mode, although we may try to track down opposing robots

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

Just to get everyone moving, for Labview teams using Basic Robot: Open the Autonomous block diagram and flip the while loop control from False to True. It will enable a 4 segment drive and turn program. All you need is to adjust speeds and also the motor outputs if you've changed them from default arcade. Hope to see every robot moving.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

The analysis sounds right on, however, we will still attempt to track, lock on and shoot during the auto period.
Since we are not looking to create a ball harvester and have human loading into our hopper, the more opportunities, the better. We would start our match during tele mode loading up.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

In my opinion Autonomous this year is going to go through some changes as the season goes on. Initially I think a large number of teams are just going to go with some kind of dodge or evasion strategy. I think this is going to be effective early on because a lot of teams are still going to be tuning their cameras and shooting systems if they plan on scoring in Autonomous.

As the season goes on and more teams become comfortable with the camera and associated autonomous modes we'll see a shift from defensive autonomous play to offensive autonomous play. This will be when a random dodge or zigzag autonomous may not be that effective because you could be moving within the range of one of the human or robot shooters.

As for my teams autonomous though, We've been talking about possibly 10 or more random autonomous paths so that you could never scout all of them, a program where we move in front of our HP and hope we don't get scored on by our robot, a program where we ram into the nearest target based on the starting position (Dead Reconing), and a program where we use our camera to track another robot and attempt to pin their trailer so that we can score if we want to at the beginning of Tele-OP.

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if you damage the trailer in doing so you will take a penalty (G30)

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has anybody given any though to the idea that getting anywhere specific during the auto period is going to be all but impossible?

my team put the new wheels on an old robot, and we found that precision steering only happens with human players towing the robot :D

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

Traction Control is one of the big things this year. It's all in acceleration. Like driving in snow. If you just gun it, the tires spin. Nice easy acceleration will get you going faster. The challenge for autonumous is to get away as fast as possible without spinning the wheels.

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Where's the "drive to the center of the field and spin around in circles" strategy? Seems like that would be the most "compact" evasion strategy. Not sure you could get going fast enough to make it effective, though.

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I've found that it's actually quite effective at evading balls from human players, but it's also very touchy and prone to being disrupted by other robots. When you're jacknifed against your trailer, it's actually a lot easier to go backwards than forwards. (I suppose you could go around in circles backwards, but if you plan on switching directions much, you'll have to deal with the deadband in the jaguars)

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

There are many many different types of strategies. Thinking of as many autonomous strategies and having an autonomous switchboard will be extremely necassary.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

Is there any possible way of getting away from the payload specialists (the ones in the corner, where you start) during autonomous without getting any moonrocks thrown into your trailer, seems pretty impossible to accomplish to me.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

The way our robots design is made, it would be best to go get empty cells and drop off.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

Seems like the best thing to do would be immediatley spin around, get the robot in between the trailer and the HP, and then drive backwards

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I agree. A wide robot with low moment of inertia will be able to spin the fastest, even with the trailer. As long as the entire ensemble fits in the launching pad with the trailer touching the wall, the robot could be biased in the spin direction so the maneuver can be completed as quickly as possible before backing away. That wide robot with the five foot back wall amost completely screens the trailer from the opposing payload specialist.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

We plan to drive forward to get the trailer off the carpet and then 'crack the whip' and do a 180 (or maybe a 200). I am not sure how well we will back up with the trailer attached. (My success in launching boats by this method has been problematic...).

I agree there is little bonus for auto mode this year.

In previous years 'spin in circles' was a dumb auto mode, this year I am not sure???

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

I just wish they would give bonus points in autonomous! :mad:

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

If anyone is going to turn around in autonomous to block the trailer, are they worried about tipping over the trailer?

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

My team is not worried about tipping over the trailer. While we are not sure about the exact CG of a trailer, even with game pieces in it, we know it is low enough that tipping a trailer will be difficult, even if we tried to.

Also, we don't think it's necessary to pull the trailer off the carpet before beginning our quick spin to block the PS shooting. We can position the trailer so that the tongue makes the maximum angle to our hitch so that it's biased in such a way that the trailer wheels will roll when we spin, minimizing friction enough that the time lost in getting off the carpet before spinning will not be worth it. We will spin somewhat less than 180 degrees so that the robot will optimally block the trailer from the PS and then push the jackknifed trailer back away from the PS.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

Tipping over the trailer shouldn't really be an issue thanks to the trailer hitch (assuming your robot isn't like 25 pounds). That and if it is tipped/flipped, the robot is disabled for the rest of the match.

What we were thinking was to run from the Payload Specialist and then just circle at pseudo-random speeds while searching for targets to shoot at.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

I think that getting an empty cell during autonomous will be the most useful because then you can get the super cell which is worth a lot more points.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

Not really, super cells can't be used until the last 20 seconds. I mean, it's fine to move the empty cell to the fueling station, but it won't be useful until the match is coming to a close.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

Super cells are likely to decide many matches, so getting a head start with an empty cell in autonomous sounds to me like a very worthwhile strategy.

Re: Autonomous Strategies
 

Agreed. Once teleop starts, empty cell transport will become a dicey operation.