Last minute autonomous help

[davidthefat]

Originally Posted by AlexD744

Personally I find the encoders a more reliable way of making an autonomous algorithm. You simply drive until you hit a certain number of encoder counts. Then you move your manipulator. Then you drive some more. Then you place. Then you reverse.
If you're using the Iterative Robot template, the easiest way to do this is do create different state machines for the drive and each of your mechanisms. Then you create a main state machine that simply feeds these other machines values and waits for the drive or manipulator to be in place. Once the structure was created, fine tuning the numbers only took a few hours, and now we can place on any of the high pegs and the middle second level pegs reliably (as long as we're using a fresh battery that is).

I personally would disagree with you on that: because our robot is driven by chain, there are a lot of noise in the encoders from the chain jerking around. I suggest one day just put the robot on blocks and let the motor run through from 0 to 255 PWM and graph the encoder data vs the PWM. You will be surprised at the noise.