Re: Next Game Autonomous Mode
 

You're assuming that your rookie team in question puts the same amount of emphasis on mechanical versus autonomy that most teams do every year / last year. As in, mechanical tasks are "easy" and programming tasks are "hard". Maybe programming just seems harder because there hasn't been a great emphasis on it? Sure, there was hybrid in 2008, but it wasn't obvious to Random Team XYZ that a winning hybrid was the best strategy of all that year. People had trouble this year because teams decided that the game challenge did not call for an autonomous emphasis moreso than a mechanical emphasis, so they spent 6 weeks building and 3 days programming instead of the other way around.

Why assume a team has more mechanical resources than programming resources rather than the other way around? If anything, an autonomous intensive game rather than a mechanically intensive game would level the playing field; since programming isn't something you use "resources" to do like in the mechanical sense. "Any" team can make good code, unlike a well machined and light mechanical part.

Re: Next Game Autonomous Mode
 

Chris, how many rookie teams have you seen with an automode? With an automode that works?

I haven't seen any improvements in those numbers over the past few years, either.

In general, automode is not a priority for rookies. This is for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the best automode is useless if the mechanical parts to make it work don't work (which is also why many programmers get very little time).

I get what you're saying--rookies can do well autonomously. But I don't think that it's reasonable for the majority of rookies, or even an alarmingly large number of veterans, to go half the match autonomously. How many teams used robocoach controls in hybrid in 2008?

If the GDC wants autonomy to be a focus at all, 2006 automode was the way to go, with 2007 being a close second. Automode has been almost an afterthought for the last 3 years.

Re: Next Game Autonomous Mode
 

We also had an auto-aiming turret. The driver would get the light within the field of view of the camera and a light would turn on to let him know that auto-tracking was ready. He could then hold down a button and the turret would follow the light. It also determined the distance to the goal (using the height of the light in the frame with some trig) and determined the optimal tilt of the shooter (when you're close you have a high trajectory, moving back lowers the trajectory to a point, then you have to start aiming higher again to play the arc)

If a quick maneuver was made or if we were pushed quickly, the turret would turn in the direction that the light should have been based on the way the light left the field of view. This approach let the driver have control of how the turret behaved based on the situation.

You can see the tracking in autonomous (both pan and tilt) in this video. There used to be a video from Wisconsin where we got spun and the turret self-corrected, but I can't seem to find it.

We positioned the turret by hand so that it would pick up the light when it started trying to track. The same section of code was reused between both modes, so we had nice consistent behavior.

In my opinion, this is how vision targets should be used. Teams could really use it to their advantage throughout the game. Every other attempt that FIRST has used has failed. In 2007 some teams used the light in auto, but it wasn't worth it to use it during driver control. In 2009 there were a handful of teams that used the vision targets in auto and in driver control (40 and 494 come to mind), but using that target didn't make teams leaps and bounds better. 2010 was worthless because everything was in a known location in autonomous and in driver control it was relatively easy to score knowing a robot's capabilities. What's the takeaway here? Vision targets are best used when a task has a hard (not impossible) difficulty to do by hand, but easy when the target is used. It is also important to note that the illuminated targets yielded much better results than color pattern and image detection.

I can't disagree with this more. An autonomous intensive game will increase the gap in the playing field. Teams that have experience will always have less of a hurdle to clear and will be able to raise the bar even more. You say "any" team can make good code, but how many teams know how to? Yes, programming basic FIRST robots is getting easier every year with libraries and tutorials out there, but I am still amazed at the number of teams that struggle with simple autonomous. For example, look at 2008. All you had to do was drive across that first line to get points. How many teams didn't even have that at their first regional? Don't take this as an insult to rookie teams. I know there are well supported rookies that hold their own every year, but they are the minority. In general, rookies will always have major hurdles to clear which sets them back. Once they get over those hurdles though, great things can happen.

Re: Next Game Autonomous Mode
 

About the game idea, couldn't a team just build a bot to stay on the side of the curtain they can see and just push all the robots trying to do autonomous out the way? Or you could just use a camera if allowed. A few strategies could become game winning if you simply ignored trying to program your own autonomous and focus on using your brain (able to quickly react to a change) versus a robot (that just follows a predetermined set of instructions) to disrupt the other alliance. My bet would be on the drivers controlling the robots preventing the autonomous bots from scoring a significant amount of points.

Also, many teams try to find jobs for all the students, like driving or scouting, pit crew, etc. Eliminating the drivers by making an all autonomous game would prevent some people from being able to participate, and at least in my experience, everyone wants to drive the robot, and would be disappointed if told the robot was all autonomous (if they even understood what it meant).

Finally, many teams take their robots to events outside of FIRST to promote the competition, their team, etc. A lot of times, this requires doing something the robot wasn't exactly designed to do in competition (such as occasionally trying to manipulate something other than what it was built to manipulate). An automous robot would probably require a large area, have to have a fence or wall to keep it in, and you cannot control it to send it out to interact with the crowd.

Just my thoughts, and if you have a counter argument against any point, or think I am trying to bring back an old thread, I am just trying to spark a healthy debate on something that many people just keep bringing the same point on.

Re: Next Game Autonomous Mode
 

Too easy to prevent from the GDC's perspective. Robot starting position is on the far side of the curtain, and the bottom of the curtain has a bar that is difficult for a robot to move (ideally, attached to the lifting mechanism). Then all you have to do is either ban cameras or let the drivers deal with camera lag. Defense level goes down pretty dramatically with just two tweaks...