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Unread 30-07-2010, 11:11
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Re: Preparing CS students for the Robotics Revolution

I don't think we can understate how difficult autonomous programming is, especially in a highly interactive game like first.

Back in school, I took a grad course in autonomous robotics, along with 29 other students. We essentially spent the entire semester broken up into teams of 3 build and programming small autonomous robots out of Lego's and Handy boards, with one straight forward task - drive around an arena, pick up plastic Easter eggs, and return them to your "nest" (identified by a polarized light source). We competed 2v2, and there were probably 100 eggs in the arena.

It was rare to have more than 10 points in a match. In fact, it was rare to have more than two robots actually working correctly out of the 4 on the field. And this was from grad students with much more experience and much more time (a full semester, at least 3 hours spent on it per day, almost every day).

Now, all that said, it's certainly possible for a team to build up the knowledge and experience they need to build successful, complex autonomous modes. It would require extensive knowledge and experience with PID loops and different forms of feedback. Spending time in the off season working with these, and over several years you could develop the capabilities to make an impressive autonomous mode.

But then what about the rookie teams? How do we make something so complex still accessible to them? How do we give them the time and resources needed to run their code on prototype/test robots in order to work out the bugs?

Our team has only been around for 4 years. I can still remember our first year, and the sheer joy we had the first time the robot actually moved. We tried to do an autonomous mode that year, but we didn't have the experience, as a team, to be able to do it.