Do you think FIRST should extend the autonomous time

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by JohnM

Do you think FIRST should extend the autonomous time to somewhere like 30 seconds? That way it would make autonomous about as critical as teleop is to the game score. I think this would challenge the programmers on teams more. Plus it makes our robots more like robots. What do you guys think?

EDIT:
Also give your reasoning if you want to.

No. The fact is most autonomous periods are boring. Many robots don't even move. Having 30 seconds of 5 robots sitting still while 1 moves forward, does some simple task for 5 seconds and then sits still is BORING.

And I assert that auton is already critical. There were matches last weekend in which we pretty much won in auton.

[jvriezen]

My suggestion (probably for IRI, since it is too late now for FIRST) is the following:

1) Additional points for an assist during Auton. This was attempted at 10K Lakes where the 2nd ball was pushed forward by the non-shooting bot to feed it into the intake of the shooting bot that had already advanced into the blue zone. The intake didn't didn't take-in, unfortunately. It would require more than the 2nd bot to be just touching the ball. It would have to at least herd it or carry it.

2) More points for CATCH. This is always a crowd pleaser, and much more difficult than the TRUSS, so it should be worth more points than a TRUSS.

[waialua359]

We are already at week 6 events.
Too late to change a game that everyone else has already planned, built, and tested for.

Sorry, cant tell if you mean at later events this season or for next season and beyond.

If its next season, depends on the game.

[Joseph Smith]

Autonomous is already just as important as teleop, if not more so. You have a chance to score up to 75 points, virtually defense-free. It can set the stage for the entire match. Climbing back up after the other alliance gets a big lead in auton can be extremely difficult. Besides, a longer autonomous (assuming that they would add the potential for more scoring, because otherwise what's the point) would only widen the gap between high-caliber teams and teams who struggle or lack programming resources.

[nuggetsyl]

We have teams with driver control that can't do anything for 30 secs. Their are several teams this year that can't even drive forward to get 5 point. Can you see where I stand on this.

[Christopher149]

Originally Posted by waialua359

We are already at week 6 events.
Too late to change a game that everyone else has already planned, built, and tested for.

Sorry, cant tell if you mean at later events this season or for next season and beyond.

If its next season, depends on the game.

The poll title says "Do you think FIRST should extend autonomous to 30 or more seconds for future games?"

edit: emphasis mine

[Bob Bonczyk]

I say it is an awesome challenge and my vote is to keep it the same. But what if the autonomous part was at the end?

[KevinG]

I think fifteen seconds is more than enough. Many teams lack the ability or resources to do more than get in the correct zone, and time spent watching the robot is time spent where the students aren't playing.

[EricWilliams]

I'll just play Devil's Advocate here:

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

You can score 75 in auto this year. Most qualification matches do not peak 100 points. This seems plenty important.

I know my game insight and strategy skills are legendary (I predicted a strong goalie bot would be a reasonable strategy this year), but could this not be little bit of confirmation bias? You're not comparing average autonomous to average match scores, and it's hard to say that the average telop scores are what the game was theoretically designed for.

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

No. The fact is most autonomous periods are boring. Many robots don't even move. Having 30 seconds of 5 robots sitting still while 1 moves forward, does some simple task for 5 seconds and then sits still is BORING.

Couldn't you draw the conclusion from this (absolutely agreed upon) sentiment that teams aren't focusing on autonomous mode BECAUSE not enough (perceived) importance is being placed on strong autonomous performance?

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by EricWilliams

You're not comparing average autonomous to average match scores, and it's hard to say that the average telop scores are what the game was theoretically designed for.

The average robot scores 9.74 points in Autonomous and 8.22 points in the high goal (and fouls). It also scores 5.85 points from assists and 4.05 points from truss/catch. Alternately, the top 100 robots average 20.87 points from assists, 22.76 from Auto, 12.57 from Truss/Catch and 24.82 from Teleop/Fouls.

[kevin.li.rit]

I think they should have a button that you can flip for a bonus autonomous mode. Flip the switch and you just stay hands off your robot for the rest of the match.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by EricWilliams

Couldn't you draw the conclusion from this (absolutely agreed upon) sentiment that teams aren't focusing on autonomous mode BECAUSE not enough (perceived) importance is being placed on strong autonomous performance?

I'm drawing the conclusion that the average team inhales audibly and is therefore incapable of fielding a robot that moves reliably let alone one that moves autonomously for 30 seconds. It's not a function of focus; it's a function of lack of training, support, and reasonable expectations.

[IronicDeadBird]

Also just consider the time constraints, would you add the auton' time to the game or take it out of the teleop? What would have been nice is to see an auton redemption at the end of each match where robots attempt to position for another shot at auton. Other then that I feel like in order for the change to actually have a significant impact you would be adding far too much time.

[cbale2000]

I would say yes to this idea on two conditions:

1. The match length was increased in proportion to the auton time increase (Don't reduce driver time to accommodate an auton >15 seconds)
2. Allow robots to interact during auton. Some of the most exciting parts of matches from older games were during auton because other teams could attempt to disrupt opponents auton. Granted it would depend on the game, but I think its crucial to making any long auton interesting for spectators.

[Jon Stratis]

The length of autonomous really depends on the game. For a game like this one... there's a limited amount of stuff they could really have us do for autonomous, so a short auto makes sense. Go back to a game like Overdrive, and a longer auto starts to make more sense, as the limit for auto points was really based on how fast/far you could reliably drive in auto.

Given that, I would not say they should extend it for all games, just that it could reasonably be extended for some games, so long as there's plenty to do and it's easy enough to do it that everyone can get it done to one extent or another (like mobility points this year).