Here is a paradigm for ya if you're itching to do autonomous software.
Software only exists so that machine can serve man.
Did that just blow your mind? It basically means that if man can't control a machine ... it's practically useless. Since a man/woman can't ever truly make up his/her mind about what he/she REALLY wants to do, autonomous control is only as good insofar as we can alter the behavior on the fly (aka, teleop mode). At that point, why not just relent most, if not all, decision-making high-level control to the human operator? It'll probably make more sense when you get further into a career.
In all seriousness, for the great majority of teams out there the autonomous tasks are already difficult enough to achieve during the build season simply because the mechanical aspects take so many resources. This is just like the real world for any type of sensor-feedback system that MUST work 100% of the time. The physical piece is just as hard as the software piece in 90% of situations (even the ones where all you have to do is build a server from COTS parts...). You didn't experience this in FLL or FTC because the mechanical pieces are all, essentially, puzzle pieces.
For a real challenge of a real-time integrated autonomous software system, look into building a QuadRotor. Then figure out what tasks to give it, and make it do the tasks. They're relatively cheap if you don't break anything:
www.diydrones.com. Yet even with them -- the less software, the better!