This (exhaustive) thread discusses the feasibility of playing FRC matches with a fully autonomous robot.
But I have something different in mind. What if, for every FRC game, a simpler game was devised that could be more easily played 100% autonomously? This would be an opportunity for teams to exercise and share control systems skills. It would also perhaps employ a few elements from the latest FRC game, so that each team could use its (presumably mechanically complete) robot and practice field elements.
When I say simple, I mean that teams could score points just by driving their robot from one position on the field to another. For example, based on this year it could be driving from the Key to your lane across the bump. I'm also envisioning this happening a few months after the competition season, so that teams have time to develop and test their code. I want this to be as accessible as possible, but also sufficiently challenging for those who can handle it. In the case of Rebound Rumble, the points scored for each hoop or balanced bridge could be increased.
I'm not sure how FMS logistics would work here, or even event organization -- I'm just trying to think of a fun way for teams to experiment with control techniques that they didn't deploy with their competition robot due to time constraint/stability issues.
Incidentally,
Zero Robotics is working towards becoming a fully autonomous FIRST, where everyone plays with identical robots and teams rely on an "FMS" that gives everyone data about the location of every robot. Their past two games have involved interacting with opponents, and this year there were allies as well. How could a game, based on Rebound Rumble but designed for a fully autonomous scrimmage, facilitate robot-robot interaction? In ZR, robots shoot virtual "lasers" at each other, but such a solution would not work well in FIRST. Robots would have to be completely on their own for localization and field navigation, as well as finding other robots.
it is interesting to think about how human players could co-exist in such a game. For example, based on Rebound Rumble, I can envision a robot that shoots its balls at the Key, navigates to its human player on the other side of the field, collects balls until it is full, and then returns towards the hoops until it is in range to shoot again. But such sophisticated routines would warrant a significant point bonus. This should be a competition that is accessible to rookie and veteran programmers alike.
Thoughts?