Wow. That sounds both amazing and painful. It's an interesting concept, that's for sure. The main programmer on our team might be up to the challenge (only problem is that he is a senior right now and will only mentor next year). This could be something for our programming team to work on over the summer though.

It would certainly make for an interesting match if all the robots were autonomous, but what would the drivers do? I'm not sure if a fully autonomous robot could pull off a last-second balance or miracle shot like this year. And if a robot this year were autonomous, how would it know when to balance or how to react to defending robots? How would you program it to know the difference between an alliance partner and an opponent?

The human element in matches is important. If an alliance partner needed help (say their robot was tipped over) the fully autonomous robot probably wouldn't help right the other robot. And then there's always some faulty sensor or something. I'm not saying this is a bad idea, I'm saying this would be hard to pull off and still win matches.

Still, I would be absolutely awed if there was a robot next year that had full autonomous and could still win matches.