[Doug Leppard]

I agree with the various years assessment. On the team I was on we had a good auto mode every year except 2005.

I went back and analyzed how our auto mode and ramp use affected the games at Florida regional. We came in 2nd qualifying and 2nd in finals. We made 13 out 16 tries at auto mode. Only once did another bot make auto mode when we did.

Looking at the videos and points of the qualifying matches 1 match of 8 the auto mode made the difference, if we hadn't made auto mode we would have lost. One other match it could have gone either way on winning or loosing. So without auto we would not have been in 2nd place in qualifying, it would have dropped us to 4th or maybe 12th if we would have lost the maybe one.

Turns out the effect on ramps on us was the same as auto, helped win one and one was a maybe. So auto mode was as helpful as having a good ramp partner.

So autonomous gave us the edge.

In finals, we would have lost a game in Semi-final and would have lost in semi-final if we had not made auto mode that game. We would not have moved on.

We went 2 out 3 in finals and lost the last match. auto mode failed, if we would have made auto or made it on the ramp we would have won at Florida regional.

So does autonomous matter, YES when playing tight matches it made the difference.