[marccenter]

Andrew,
You've made some good points but are you able to view your position from the other side and articulate what advantages there may be to having a semi-autonomous switch initiated operation?

1) VEXnet system is new. What happens if many teams have major problems at this Saturday's OCCRA competition. What do we do? Penalize these teams? We can potentially fall back to crystal based templates and have students start the autonomous period simulataneously with Start Switch.

2) VEXnet system is new. I have never operated the system at an OCCRA competition. Don't you think the possibility of having hardware/software glitches may be present. We may be able to accomodate teams with both VEXnet operating and Crystal based templates using the Start Switch concept.

3) Last year we ran into problems with students trying to turn on the robot based on the VEX microcontroller power switch because it was buried in the robot. This year, VEX robots are even larger and it will be more difficult to start by turning on with the VEX power switch. From my perspective, the "Start Switch" is an effective surrogate from having a student turn on the VEX microcontroller based on a power switch that is buried in the robot.

4) Having a Stop or Kill Switch, I think makes sense no matter what size robot.

5) Using a Stop/Start Switch in the programming template is an effective way to demonstrate how to overcome a "typical" student problem associated with reading a switch and "latching" the event in a software variable for future use.

Your thoughts?