Autonomous Switch?

[Lorianadonovan]

This year my team was thinking on having multiple autonomous methods depending on where we were starting on the field/what the teams in our alliance could do. One of the other mentors for the team saw physical switches when she was a judge last year in NJ on some robots. Does anyone know about this? Is there an easier way to have multiple auton methods?

[lethc]

Originally Posted by Lorianadonovan

This year my team was thinking on having multiple autonomous methods depending on where we were starting on the field/what the teams in our alliance could do. One of the other mentors for the team saw physical switches when she was a judge last year in NJ on some robots. Does anyone know about this? Is there an easier way to have multiple auton methods?

Use SmartDashboard

[SoftwareBug2.0]

Physical switches are a tried and true method, having been used by teams for over a decade. They will work when mounted on either the OI or the robot itself. During auto when you try to read the state of the OI you get whatever the values were before it went into auto.

[Lili_1868]

Last season we had a bunch of switches on our driver station and certain configurations were for different modes.

[chapman1]

The switches are just treated like another limit switch. We always used rotary switches until our programmers took over the task, but simple on-off switches can be used. One switch = two options. Two switches = 4 options.

[pribusin]

There are many ways to connect physical switches to your DS if you want to do that vs software buttons on your SmartDashboard. Many revolve around using USB connected I/O boards that mimic an HID class such as a joystick. Or you could just use an old joystick to cannibalize the innards and rewire the button inputs to physical switches on your DS. It'll then show up as another joystick and you just use the buttons as usual.

[rich2202]

We use something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Reyann-Arcade...dp/B00UUROWWK/

It let us build a switch pad with over 15 switches, and connect it to the Driver Station.

[lgphoneeric]

Originally Posted by Lorianadonovan

This year my team was thinking on having multiple autonomous methods depending on where we were starting on the field/what the teams in our alliance could do. One of the other mentors for the team saw physical switches when she was a judge last year in NJ on some robots. Does anyone know about this? Is there an easier way to have multiple auton methods?

We have usually just had a toggle or selector (or a few) on the dashboard of the driver station that we select depending on what we need to do, or where we need to be in autonomous. Its one of the easy ways we have found to vary the program and its not a lot of extra work for the programmers.

[onenerdyguy]

We code ours into smartdashboard. Then you can do not only buttons, but speed, direction, drive duration, etc, all tweakable.

Makes tweaking auto mode *alot* quicker.

[FrankJ]

If you go with switch on the robot method, you wire them the DIO on the robrio. Input to ground (0V). The input reads 1 or true when the switch is off and 0 or false when the switch is on. The DIO can be read when the robot is disabled.

[JordanManowitz]

At the beginning of the match it states that robots can hold up to 10 fuel and 1 gear. If your team mates don't want to use fuel in auton can a team then have 30 fuel?

[Robo Hamsters]

For the past 2 years we have used a rioduino with touchscreen to create an autonomous control panel on the bot.

It gives the programming team additional learning opportunities.

[ToddF]

One of our lessons learned, which we will be implementing next year, is eliminating any reliance on the smart dashboard. We'll be putting our auto mode selection on the robot. We have been burned too many times by a malfunctioning smart dashboard on our control station computer. It always seems to happen at the worst possible time.

I hope to never again have this conversation:
"Why did the robot just sit there in auto?"
"The smart dashboard crashed just before the match, and we didn't have time to restart it."

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by ToddF

One of our lessons learned, which we will be implementing next year, is eliminating any reliance on the smart dashboard. We'll be putting our auto mode selection on the robot. We have been burned too many times by a malfunctioning smart dashboard on our control station computer. It always seems to happen at the worst possible time.

I hope to never again have this conversation:
"Why did the robot just sit there in auto?"
"The smart dashboard crashed just before the match, and we didn't have time to restart it."

The worst is when, you have one auton you run 70% of the time, but you need a different auton for this match. And THAT's the match where your driver station keeps dropping connection, and you have to use the field's driver station, and SmartDashboard won't load for your robot on that computer, and then you have to go out to the field and move your robot in front of the Sally Port so you can just get two points instead of breaking your arm, and then you don't get the two points anyway. And you lose the match.

Anyhow, not speaking from experience or anything, but consider alternatives for selecting autonomous modes in competition. SmartDashboard is great for practice and development adjustments however.

Coding multiple autons is really easy though. If statements, or switch cases, that call each method depending on the state of a sensor on the robot (e.g. a potentiometer or series of switches), or the state on SmartDashboard.

[Coach Seb]

any info on using the RIOduino to control the auton would be appreciated...