[Morgan Jones]

I would probably write the program so that only a significant joystick event dropped the robot out of autonomous mode. That is, the joystick would have to break a predetermined threshold (maybe something like +/- 50). That way, a minor bump would be ignored, but when the driver urgently grabbed the controls, the robot would understand. Of course, any other input from the OI(buttons, pots, etc) would also break the autonomous mode. Basically, I want the driver to be able to take over immediately should something go haywire after the 15 seconds. If the robot suddenly veered toward a wall at full speed, the driver could grab the joysticks and save the robot without having to think about pressing a button.