Intresting Autonomous
 

Today I watched a couple matches of the Traverse City FIRST Robotics District Competition. I mostly was watching the autonomous time. some teams have intresting autonomous.

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

Yes a ton of teams have an interesting autonomous, which matches or what did their auto do?

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

team #201 their autonomous time, it spins in a circle untill autonomous is over.

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We are gonna use the same routine, go straight and then spin or go to our human player's post and get refilled.

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We started it. They saw ours and copied it. They even told me. It was part of the reason that we won the regional, it worked amazing! No-one scored on us the entire district when we were in autonomous mode!

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

Where did you get the videos? I can't find any, anywhere!

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wrong, every one copied 342. Our auton is "patented", just ask the announcers at Florida Regional from 2007

342 "patented distracting auton dance"
:p

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

we did not make this autonomous up and were scored on in autonomus,
and we were on the winning alliance. Selected by 2645 (a Great Team, thank you:) ) and played with 247 (The Bears rock )

The most intresting or gut wrenching was our robot taking off at a slow speed than insted of one side forward and one backward both forward full speed into the driver station on the other side of the field. who ever thought up the bumpers on the driver station wall thank you. (:confused: did you flash it )

Tim

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

We don't like spinning automode since our human plays say its easier to score on than some other modes. It does look awesome. :P

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My team, 904, went with the track the trailer and score in it method. It works pretty well. It's still a little buggy, but we can fix that easily.

I did notice at Traverse City team 2645 also was tracking and shooting. I was wondering if one of their programmers could fill the rest of us in on what their secret was?!? From what I could tell the robot drove towards the target, found it, backed up when the image percent was too large, and then lobbed a cell into the trailer. Pretty impressive.

Anyone use an ultrasonic sensor for their auto mode?

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

They really need to give bonus points for robot scoring in auton. That is really impressive.

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Yeah, I totally agree. If your robot can score in autonomous every match (which I haven't seen) then it gives you an advantage, but only if you don't get a lot of balls in your trailer.

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I think 612 has a strong auto. They don't score in Autonomous because they chose not to but they can line themselves up almost perfectly with a trailer about 90% of the time.

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What do you mean "chose not to"? Why?

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

Probably because you have a greater chance of scoring during human control. The fact that there are no bonus points in autonomous mode really makes scoring in autonomous less desirable. Instead I would imagine the team sets themselves up to dump as soon as the mode switches. Our robot has some stringent requirements to dump into the trailer for autonomous mode. Therefore I doubt we will be scoring during auto mode unless those conditions are met.

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

Please post a link to a video you if you find an Interesting Autonomous

My favorite autonomous as of now is the 121/175 alliance pinning of their opponent.

http://www.thebluealliance.net/tbatv...?matchid=11858

Does anyone see any strategy problems with the 121/175 autonomous ?

I think most of 121's autonomous modes were excellent

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

http://s255.photobucket.com/albums/h...City%20Videos/


this is alot of team #201 matches.

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At the New Jersey regional we chose not to score during Autonomous for many reasons. First off we felt that because our Autonomous mode was not fully ready for scoring it was not worth the risk. We attempted scoring earlier but was only able to score 4 balls. Those first 7 moon rocks are very important so we choose only to line up with a trailer so when we started teleoperted we were ready to go. This gave us a greater chance of scoring those first 7. Now at the NASA/VCU Regional we will go back to trying to score in Autonomous because I think in Atlanta this will be a very important ability.

Here are some good videos of our robot tracking during the playoffs (all this video was provided from our "bot cam" that was mounted next to the actual camera)

(Quarterfinal Match 1, locked on team 136)

(Semifinal Match 1, locked on team 708)

(Semifinal Match 2, locked on team 708)

(Semifinal Match 3, locked on team 1218) (My favorite)

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

that bot cam is awesome, i didnt know we were allowed to do that

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From my understanding in order to do so you must have permission from the Lead Inspector at the event, which at the New Jersey regional we did.

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Our autonomous runs to our alliance's refueling station and hides. It is very difficult for human player to score on a robot that is over there.

We decided not to go forward and spin since that's what everyone else does, giving us a 50% chance of being pinned to the wall rather than getting to center.

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

That's basically what ours did.
It went forward for a few seconds then spun around. It also calibrated our ball dumper (which is kinda cool to watch btw, I might upload a video when our bot gets back.)

~DtD

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

We built our code from the "2 color servo tracking demo". Basically we looked at the part in the code that spit out the servo angles for the x-axis servo on the gimbal. These were an angle value and so consequently ranged from 0-170. We called angles 0-85 (85 = 170 / 2) "left turn". We made a function that linearly increased power to the drive wheels as the angle got closer to 0. angles 85-170 were considered "right turn" and were scaled the same way. additionally, we told the robot not to move if the camera wasn't currently tracking a target. After all of this, our robot would turn but not drive towards a target. Next we found the part in the code that spit out the "area %" of the target on the screen. We created a function that would add an amount to the drive speed of both motors (so that the motors would drive forward) that increased linearly based on the distance (area %) that the camera saw. Additionally, we added a switch on our robot to switch between the colors that the camera is currently tracking (green/pink or pink/green).

If you do this type of programming in Labview, I suggest that every time you make a multiplier in a function you first make a knob on the front panel so that you can "tweak" the outcome of the function. Then when you are done go to the block diagram, right click on the knob or dial and select "change to constant". Doing this will ensure that the numbers you have chosen in your functions always stay the same. If you leave them as a dial they will reset themselves.

We are currently working on getting the robot to move out on to the field 3 seconds initially, and then start tracking. Ideally we would have had a "field position switch" which would allow us 3 different autonomous modes, but unfortunately a firmware update disabled this ability for us. Also unfortunate was that we already had the control panel made with the switch mounted.

I wrote a ton, but I hope that lets you in on the "secret":P

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

This works fine. You can also right click on the knob or other control and go to Data Operations >> Make Current Value Default. That way they are there to tweak in the future if conditions change.

Greg McKaskle

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

Switches on the DS side can still be read and used to select Autonomous modes. The difference is that they now cannot be read in Autonomous/Enabled mode. Read them in Autonomous/Disabled and cache the values for use during Autonomous/Enabled. Also, there are reports that the values return incorrectly from the last cycle of Autonomous Disables, so make sure your code has a way of dealing with this.

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

Our team did some experimenting and found that at least in LabView, the last time Auto Disabled runs the DS input values are in fact zeroed out just like they are if you try to read them during Auto Enabled. I assume the C++ handling is similar but we have not checked that.

It's hard to handle this in the LabView Basic Framework, but is pretty straightforward in the Advanced Framework - attached is an example Disabled.vi for the advanced framework that shows this, hope it's useful! The AutonMode.vi also attached is just a simple "functional global" variable. Autonomous Independent just reads the cached value.

Ron
Team 2607 - software mentor

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

Team BOB! You guys have an awesome robot. It was a blast to have been picked to play in the quarter finals with you and look forward to seeing you again over at West Michigan.

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

The values should never be zeroed if the DS is in Auto Disabled state even if it is the last run (how would the DS know that anyway?). I dont have LV installed on this computer and I haven't studied the advanced framework or your code (I stopped programing in LV before the advanced framework, but I do understand LV, especially dataflow programming). However what I think is happening there (based on what I am hearing) is the Auto Disable LV state runs once while the DS is in Auto Enable (reason for the zeroing) before transitioning to Auto Enable.

In either LV or C++ if you call IsDisabled() or its LabView equivalent before testing your Auto Selection switches you should be fine.

My team has used two 6-position rotary switches to select our auto routines for the past few years. They give us 36 slots (usually enough even for our team) using only 2 analog ins as opposed to 5+ digital ins (usually need those for other controls).

[Back on topic] Dawgma (1712) camera tracked and scored 4 times (hitting all 7 balls 3 times) in auto. Even when they didn't score in auto they often scored immediately afterward[/Back on topic]

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One of our neighbor teams is using a ten-turn pot with a fancy readout on their Driver Station as a mode selector. I think their code is able to distinguish 100 different settings.

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Cool idea, was that 007 or 53? I've only started to play with the DS display. I dont think I would ever switch to a scheme that required feedback from the cRIO. I am comfortable with being able to yell at the comp team in the queue "Run C-3!" and they can dial that in immediately w/o turning on the robot. However, maybe I will use this great idea to print out what the auto routine does on the DS so they can confirm (w/o looking at their cards). Also if I need more auto selections I can always put more resistors on the rotary switches (they can expand to 8 or 10 different positions), 6 was just chosen because there are 6 starting positions (lucky we didnt need to use it give red vs blue target to the camera else we would be out by now).

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

It's Team 1760. They're our physical neighbor in the same county, not a numeric one.

They weren't using the DS display when I saw their system. The "fancy readout" is a very nice knob with special gearing and a mechanical attachment to the shaft. They're common in applications using ten-turn pots. Here's one such device: http://parts.digikey.com/1/parts/746...-011-1-11.html

Re: Interesting Autonomous
 

If anyone gets a chance to watch the NYC Regional webcast (Saturday & Sunday), check out our auto-mode.
We're very proud of it, & it's completely intergrated into the drive system of the robot using a gyro as an assist, & is very cool in my opinion, but I'll let you all decide.
Comments welcome if you see it btw!
Thanks!

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

Yep, we're both describing the same behavior - in LV the framework calls the Disabled.vi one time (at least) when the "derived robot state" is "stop", and at that point the DS inputs are read as zero. This is similar to that IterativeRobot race condition in C++.

I haven't looked at the DS packets to see whether the DS is actually reporting the state to be "enabed" or "disabled" when this happens, but we plan to check into it - it's a fun way to teach the kids about comm protocols and network analysis.

[EDIT: For anyone interested, after a quick glance at the LV WPI library code, it seems clear that the DS is actually reporting the state as enabled, the framework just intentionally runs the disabled vi an extra time to allow for clean up. So not a "race condition" but something to be aware of in the framework. You'll see what I'm talking about in the "Get Competition Mode.vi" which the framework uses to figure out what mode to run]

Ron
Team 2607 - software mentor

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

It seems to me that, owing to symmetry, there are only three starting positions, so that with six autonomy choices a robot could have two options for each starting position.

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

scoutmasterlord,

Thanks for posting the link to the 201 website. I have more videos to upload but converting them from 265Mb avi to smaller mpeg is taking a while.


I also want to thank TVan from team 85 for admitting that they did not invent "auto-spin".

I can't say that we invented it either but it was programmed in the robot when we got to Traverse City and we used it in every match.

I haven't counted how many balls landed in the trailer during autonomous but it wasn't very many.

I especially like the video of Qualifying Match 38 where 85 and 201 were doing synchronized spinning.

It seemed like more and more teams used auto-spin as the weekend went on.

By the time we get to the Detroit regional, there will probably be six spinning robots in each match.

Raffi

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

I had to do it. I watched all the videos to see how many times we were scored on in autonomous.

I don't have video of match 1 or 8 but I have the rest.

I counted all the balls that landed in the trailer from the start until the buzzer at the end of autonomous when the robot stops spinning.

Here they are listed by match number and ball count:

18: 0
21: 0
27: 0
38: 0
43: 2 we got trapped
47: 0
55: 0
59: 0
68: 0
72: 0
Qtr 4-1: 0
Qtr 4-2: 0
Semi 2-1: 0
Semi 2-2: 1
Semi 2-3: 2, one was scored by our own alliance member


Raffi

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

I can tell you that in match #1 that we didn't get a single ball scored on us during auto. I was reviewing the crude video that I took, and I didn't see any balls go into it.

And for future reference try to edit your earlier post to include the extra info if no one has replied after you.

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

if u can get my status in to the green

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

Where exactly in the labview code should we read the analog inputs? Should we read them in the basic robot main vi under the "Other" section? Or is there somewhere in the autonomous independent code that we should put it? Thanks!

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

A lot of teams might incorporate that, but we will never use that - our autonomous has been pretty unique and is key to our strategy. I also don't see 70/494 spinning in auton.

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

It's not straightforward to do with the LV basic framework. Take a look at the example code (using the LV advanced framework) attached to this post:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...2&postcount=26

It shows reading the digital inputs, but the same principle applies to the DS analog inputs as well.

Thanks,
Ron
Team 2607 - software mentor

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

You can read them in the Basic Robot Main outside the big case block, and store their values in a control in Basic Robot Global. Read the Global in Autonomous Independent to decide what to do with it.

You will need to delay storing by one loop time, because the Main gets called one extra time after Autonomous is enabled, with all the analog inputs at zero. I'd use a feedback node to pass the value to the next iteration of the loop. I think the other alternative, a shift register, clutters up the block diagram more.

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Team 904 is scoring autonomously as this video begins. This is a match in week 1 at the Traverse City District event in Michigan. The rest of the match is primarily focused on our team.

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Does anyone have a picture of 1254 if u do please post it. thanx:cool:

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

My team has been searching for analog switches of the variety you speak of, but we haven't been able to locate anything that we were certain was what we were looking for. Could you please post a link to somewhere that we could purchase those switches? Thanks!

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

We've used the this potentiometer with detents before.

It's also common to take a rotary switch and solder resistors in series, between each terminal, to turn it into a rotary potentiometer.

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

As Joe described, we are putting resistors (like 10K or so) in series across the terminals of a rotary switch. We have used Radioshack rotary switches before, but we now use these Electroswitch ones:
http://search.digikey.com/scripts/Dk...me=451-1027-ND

They have 12 positions but we only use 6 positions and use 2 of them (6 * 6 = 36 auto selections, we rarely need more than that :D ).

Joe's suggestion of a pot with 10 detents is also a good idea. They are cheaper and much easier to solder. We'll stick with the rotary switches to avoid the very minor risk of setting them in between detents.

Another interesting new feature to use for auto mode selection is the Driver Station LCD. During Disabled mode, we pint a short name for the Auto routine on the LCD screen so it can be confirmed.

Re: Intresting Autonomous
 

Thanks a ton, both of you!
Expect to see 862 at the Championship, sporting a full compliment of autonomous modes. :D