Is Autonomous worth it?

[TimTheGreat]

The top autonomous score last year was 75, which in many matches was half or more of the total score. This year, the top is only 32. This includes getting the 3 totes stacked, which gives 20 points. My question is, do you think that it is worth the programming hours for vision tracking (which I know does not need to be done)and testing and praying that other robots don't get in the way for a measly 20 points?

[Ben Martin]

In our case, it is. Getting a stacked set for 20 during auto saves time and makes it easy to do your part to get the 40 coop points very quickly during the teleoperated period.

[eddie12390]

The problem is that at the regional level, there won't be many situations where 32 points is negligible as that will probably be more than half of the average score per match. You have fifteen seconds dedicated to attempting to score these points, in my eyes it is absolutely worth attempting to score points (provided that you don't have an Alliance partner who you will be interfering with)

[SquishyIce]

Another option to consider for autonomous is grabbing recycling containers from the step. Depending on your alliance's stacking abilities, this may get you more net points as those containers will probably be snatched up quickly in teleoperated.

[Ryan Caldwell]

Top auto score is 40 by our calculations and will probably just help to close high scoring matches.

[dellagd]

Originally Posted by Ryan Caldwell

Top auto score is 40 by our calculations and will probably just help to close high scoring matches.

Technically you are correct, but I don't think something that hard to complete will happen till extremely high play, like Einstein.

[Kevin Ray]

Originally Posted by dellagd

Technically you are correct, but I don't think something that hard to complete will happen till extremely high play, like Einstein.

Hmmmm... That is exactly what I say every season, "This or that can't possibly be accomplished by a team until Einstein" And, invariably I am proved wrong. In fact, one of my favorite things to look forward to during the initial weeks of the competitions is to see who will be the first to do "the seemingly impossible".

That being said, we shoot for that impossible task and the degree to which we fall short (and we always do, so far) is how we rate our progress towards developing a better robot than the year before.

[sodizzle]

I'm trying not to count anything as not worth it. Because matches can be won or lost by 1 point. It's happened plenty of times before.

[SciBorg Dave]

Originally Posted by sodizzle

I'm trying not to count anything as not worth it. Because matches can be won or lost by 1 point. It's happened plenty of times before.

This year the competition is not head to head. So winning a match is not that important. But 20 points per match over the course of the seeding matchs will be very important.

[Lil' Lavery]

Is getting 20 points that are no longer available during tele-op worth it? Seems like a pretty easy answer to me.

[MrJohnston]

I look at it like this:
If I am not gaining the autonomous points, I need to be doing something else that is more productive than what I can do during those 15 seconds.... So, If I can get 20 points by myself in autonomous, in order to skip it, I need to be starting a tall stack have a bin and two or three totes inside my robot before the end of the auto period.

These are choices to be made at the time of the match. For instance, if my two partners do not have autonomous routines that can go for the points, but each can send their robots to the landfill, it makes a lot of sense for me to grab the auto points and prepare to load at the feeder station after the 15 second period.

If the question is: "Is it worthwhile to develop a good autonomous routine?" I would say "absolutely."

If the question is: "Is it worthwhile to perform that autonomous routine?" I would say, "It depends on the capabilities of your alliance partners."

[Gdeaver]

Is Autonomous worth it? Absolutely. Stacking 3 yellow totes and moving them into the auto zone and not touching them is a very very hard task. Only a few teams will be able to do it and they will expend allot of resources to do it. We are not putting resources into doing it. A much simpler and very doable autonomous strategy is to have all three alliance members push the tote and can into the auto zone. This is not hard. It can be as simple as putting a 40 to 45" 2x3 or 2 x 4 on the back or front of the robot around 8" off the floor. A piece about 8" sticking out from the left side helps with the can. Encoders are needed to measure distance the robot travels and the robot needs to go straight. With a little practice, the speed and distance can be dialed in and the tote, can and robot be placed in the auto zone. 18 points for a little effort. But all alliance members must do it. All or nothing. Our team may bring a setup to the comp to assist our alliance members with this. Our programers need to be ready to help lesser teams accomplish this. It's really not that hard. 18 point is 18 points. At a district 18 points x 12 matches is not an insignificant addition to your score.

[MrForbes]

Sounds easy....but it might not be quite that easy, if you also want your robot to be able to play the rest of the game. That 45" wide piece of wood would certainly get in the way of our manipulators, and probably knock over some stacks when driving around, if we were able to make stacks with it in place.

[XenObliv]

The time it takes to program the autonomous code, will all be worth it. One game can be decided by one point. You will always miss the shot you don't take. Rather than limiting yourself week 3, you should program something at least. Then in the competition you will always have the option of getting those points without relaying on others.

[Caleb Sykes]

Originally Posted by XenObliv

One game can be decided by one point.

There won't be many games that are "decided" at all this year. In fact, I would be quite happy with my team if we lose a match this year.