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Re: FVC GDC wants your feedback
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bongle
Other/General Game Ideas:
Anything to increase the amount of autonomous choice would be fantastic. I think it would be very cool if teams had to write 5+ somewhat simple autonomous modes each (and maybe a doozie for mega-points). If I was in high school again, I'd probably be spending 100% of my time programming a FVC robot.
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SUGGESTION:
To increase the weight placed on programming the robots, I suggest a set of valuable autonomous compulsory exercises (related to each season's game) be devised each season and then carried out separately by each robot before the qualification/elimination matches occur (or not carried out as the case may be). These would resemble the compulsories figure skaters must perform.
The non-trivial score each robot achieves (attempts to achieve) by executing these compulsories would be carried into each qualifying or elimination match/alliance by the robot/team and would be added to the alliance score achieved during each match.
I do think that alliance vs alliance qual matches should continue to have a brief autonomous period at their start (or perhaps at the end to make this type of autonomous operation more challenging).
REASONING:
- I definitely think that the programming part of FVC (and to a large extent this year's FRC) gets short shrift in current competitions.
- When I think of inspiring a student to pursue a career in robotics, I think of industrial and commercial robots that perform autonomously.
- When I think of teleoperation I think of large machines like ships and earthmovers, small machines that are usd in surgical procedures, and fly-by-wire planes or ROVs; but I don't think of "robots".
- The scheme above, assuming the points to be earned in the autonomous compulsories are big enough to really get folks' attention, would seriously light a fire under teams that do little with software now, would inspaire teams that want to emphasize developing software skills, and would foster stronger collaboration between all teams' programmers and mechanical designers.
- Because of the points they would bring to each qual or elimination match a well programmed autonomous robot/team would become a desireable alliance mate, even if their teleoperated performance is average or weak. This would put software finesse and cleverness on a more equal footing with driver skill and mechanical design (or mechanical brute force in some instances).
- Simply raising the value of the current style of autonomous operation would over-emphasize the robots' ability to mimic one brief set of the exact same maneuvers used in the teleoperated period.
- This would force more tough compromises in the robots' designs and would probably give rise to a more diverse set of robot designs each season.
- A hoped for side effect of this would be that teams would use more software macros to carry out parts of the teleoperated matches such as placing objectss into a goal once the robot is brought near the goal.
Blake
PS: Do many FVC teams have trouble with getting their software ready for competitions today? Yes. Should we make the software part of the competition less valuable as a consequence? No; we should make it more valuable in order to make it worth their while to invest more time into learning the software side of robotics; we should do a better job of teaching these skills; and we should continue improving the documentation and ease-of-use of the tools they are required to use.
PPS: No - In case you are wondering, I'm not a computer scientist/engineer or a professional software developer.
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Blake Ross, For emailing me, in the verizon.net domain, I am blake
VRC Team Mentor, FTC volunteer, 5th Gear Developer, Husband, Father, Triangle Fraternity Alumnus (ky 76), U Ky BSEE, Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu, Kentucky Colonel
Words/phrases I avoid: basis, mitigate, leveraging, transitioning, impact (instead of affect/effect), facilitate, programmatic, problematic, issue (instead of problem), latency (instead of delay), dependency (instead of prerequisite), connectivity, usage & utilize (instead of use), downed, functionality, functional, power on, descore, alumni (instead of alumnus/alumna), the enterprise, methodology, nomenclature, form factor (instead of size or shape), competency, modality, provided(with), provision(ing), irregardless/irrespective, signage, colorized, pulsating, ideate
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