One thing that really bugs me about this not exiting out of autonomous issue is that it is an issue that has occurred to more than one team in more than one year (meaning multiple programmers/program variations). I witnessed the incident in Annapolis last year. Two matches in a row the robot never exited autonomous mode and driver control was never established. 134's robot last year was programmed in Labview.
During Virginia this year the robot ran autonomous as expected. No driver control was established. The FTA said the robot had near perfect connectivity and everything looked normal per their computer interface. This year's robot was programmed in Java by a different programmer. The issue occurred two matches in a row.
I also witnessed the same issue with identical symptoms while a member of 229 last year in Rochester where the robot ran autonomous and never entered driver mode. Keep in mind the driver station changed hardware and again programmed by a different program and programmer with a different team number.
Also to be noted: all three of these instances occurred in the blue center driver station.
Three different variations and one same result.
Normally I might call that a coincidence but after seeing this years robot run through 50+ matches (including the Suffield Shakedown, 2 practice days, 2 sets of qualification matches, 15 or so elimination matches) not to mention numerous hours outside of the competition venues and doing so flawlessly then suddenly having the issue two times in a row with not having changed anything in the code or wiring (which I myself checked after the first failure with no changes per the usual) seems to be a bit suspicious. Being a mechanical engineer with a background in electronics and spending much of my current professional life doing debugging, all the symptoms seem to point towards an intermittent issue with the field system. I suspect the issue is somewhere in the code to the FMS system but this is outside of my knowledge area so I cannot offer a cause/corrective action.
I also could not speculate as to whether the exit is a good idea or not, but accountability and sensitivity to these issues would be very much appreciated. As a mentor (just like many other mentors) I put in a lot of time, effort and money into this program. I am right there with the kids lobbying outside of businesses for support. I am right there with the kids as we as a team strive to build a competitive robot and then if we are lucky we are able to afford to attend two regional competitions. There really is nothing worse than watching your robot sit still for two minutes and your season coming to an end with nothing more than a 'we don't know what it is so too bad'. As an adult I am disappointed to see that hard work come to such a poor end. I can only imagine how discouraging that is to a middle school/high school age kid. It also begs the question what message are we sending as professionals and engineers. To me this shows a gross lack of accountability. I am not saying stop all matches to debug every problem and do not misunderstand me I am not pointing fingers at an individual but as a culture changing organization we need be more aware of the underlying tone we are setting for the students under our charge. A simple 'we are not sure what this issue is but we will investigate it and let you know what the results are' would go a very long way.
That said, with the collective brain power that exists in these forums, I truly hope someone can figure out this bug, especially before it bites another team in the butt.
1676, 1086, & 1418 it would have been a very close and awesome semi-final if we ran. You certainly had a really great alliance and I congratulate you on your success. Best of luck the rest of the season to you. Maybe someday we can all get together for a rematch
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-Pat