Is Autonomous worth it?

[pfreivald]

I simply don't see an Autonomous Stack happening except by single robots picking up all three crates--and that's going to be a difficult task only accomplished by the best of the best.

The totes are about 21 feet apart, so you have fifteen seconds to acquire, move ~7', acquire-stack, move ~7', acquire-stack, move ~7' to get in the zone (Auto Zone!), let go, then move a very small amount.

All while avoiding your alliance partners and the Containers.

Possible? Sure.
Probable? Only at the highest levels of competition.

[jee7s]

Originally Posted by pfreivald

I simply don't see an Autonomous Stack happening except by single robots picking up all three crates--and that's going to be a difficult task only accomplished by the best of the best.

The totes are about 21 feet apart, so you have fifteen seconds to acquire, move ~7', acquire-stack, move ~7', acquire-stack, move ~7' to get in the zone (Auto Zone!), let go, then move a very small amount.

All while avoiding your alliance partners and the Containers.

Possible? Sure.
Probable? Only at the highest levels of competition.

Not to single out Patrick here, but this is indicative of a lot of "thinking before the change." There's an assumption here that you need to move to do each acquire-stack operation. Separately, there's an assumption that you need vision tracking to find the totes. But, I can just as easily picture a situation where a robot touches all of the totes with a mechanism at match start, pulls them toward each other in a known and predictable way, stacks them, and carries them into the Auto Zone and sets them down. Not that my team is planning on building that mechanism, but the stack can be made without moving the robot in (as a guesstimate) 5 seconds. Then drive forward and set it down. 20 points in 8 seconds. Boom done.

I know my team has struggled with the change. It's pretty dramatic, really opens up possibilities, but also takes effort to shift the frame of reference.

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by jee7s

Not to single out Patrick here, but this is indicative of a lot of "thinking before the change." There's an assumption here that you need to move to do each acquire-stack operation. Separately, there's an assumption that you need vision tracking to find the totes. But, I can just as easily picture a situation where a robot touches all of the totes with a mechanism at match start, pulls them toward each other in a known and predictable way, stacks them, and carries them into the Auto Zone and sets them down. Not that my team is planning on building that mechanism, but the stack can be made without moving the robot in (as a guesstimate) 5 seconds. Then drive forward and set it down. 20 points in 8 seconds. Boom done.

I know my team has struggled with the change. It's pretty dramatic, really opens up possibilities, but also takes effort to shift the frame of reference.

Yes, that's true--you could. But "120 lbs" and "twenty-foot robot" are not things I expect to see, at any point, by any team. The teams that could pull it off won't, because they know the value of the containers on the step (which you won't be able to go get in any realistic manner if you're already 21' wide)...the teams that can't pull it off, well, can't pull it off.

[You also don't need vision tracking, if you know where the totes are (which you do) and you know where your robot starts (which you rather should.) Encoders and maybe a gyro should be sufficient.]

[jee7s]

Originally Posted by pfreivald

Yes, that's true--you could. But "120 lbs" and "twenty-foot robot" are not things I expect to see, at any point, by any team.

There are many reasons that a robot may weigh 120lbs, particularly if it's a forklift and needs a counterweight.

As for a 20 foot robot, one prototype 2789 is working on involves the most distant ends of our robot being 22 feet apart at match start. And, it has a valid strategic purpose. After we are done with that strategic purpose, the robot's envelope is reduced to 27"x42".

I'm going to botch the quote, but like Morpheus said in the matrix: "Free your mind."

[JamesCH95]

OP - auto is always worth it. It's 15s to get points, if you do nothing you are wasting 15s, a reasonably long portion of the total match time.

Originally Posted by jee7s

There are many reasons that a robot may weigh 120lbs, particularly if it's a forklift and needs a counterweight.

As for a 20 foot robot, one prototype 2789 is working on involves the most distant ends of our robot being 22 feet apart at match start. And, it has a valid strategic purpose. After we are done with that strategic purpose, the robot's envelope is reduced to 27"x42".

I'm going to botch the quote, but like Morpheus said in the matrix: "Free your mind."

So someone is trying to build the 'wings of death' robot that grabs all four cans off of the barrier first thing... interesting.

[Abhishek R]

Originally Posted by JamesCH95

So someone is trying to build the 'wings of death' robot that grabs all four cans off of the barrier first thing... interesting.

Team 71 makes its return?

[Kevin Ray]

Originally Posted by Abhishek R

Team 71 makes its return?

Wow! I was thinking the exact thing when I read about grabbing all three RC's at the same time.

[Gdeaver]

The alliance on the opposite side of the field is not your opponent. You don't beat them. You and 2 other teams play for your selves. How many points can you get this match? If a team can do a 3 tote stack 3 out of 10 or 4 out of 12 of the time and another team works with their partners each match and get 3 tote, 3 robots and 3 cans in the auto zone every time, who is ahead.

[jee7s]

Originally Posted by JamesCH95

So someone is trying to build the 'wings of death' robot that grabs all four cans off of the barrier first thing... interesting.

Who said anything about wings?

[JamesCH95]

Originally Posted by Abhishek R

Team 71 makes its return?

Originally Posted by jee7s

Who said anything about wings?

I put 'wings of death' in quotes as it was simply what our team called the idea. Seemed easier than calling it: 'that idea where the robot grabs all four cans off of the barrier first-thing with a large extendable mechanism and then collapses down to a smaller profile for the rest of the match.' You may call it whatever you wish, of course.

[philso]

Originally Posted by jee7s

There are many reasons that a robot may weigh 120lbs, particularly if it's a forklift and needs a counterweight.

As for a 20 foot robot, one prototype 2789 is working on involves the most distant ends of our robot being 22 feet apart at match start. And, it has a valid strategic purpose. After we are done with that strategic purpose, the robot's envelope is reduced to 27"x42".

I'm going to botch the quote, but like Morpheus said in the matrix: "Free your mind."

You are making me want to take a trip to Alamo just to see this.

[Christopher149]

Originally Posted by jee7s

There are many reasons that a robot may weigh 120lbs, particularly if it's a forklift and needs a counterweight.

As for a 20 foot robot, one prototype 2789 is working on involves the most distant ends of our robot being 22 feet apart at match start. And, it has a valid strategic purpose. After we are done with that strategic purpose, the robot's envelope is reduced to 27"x42".

I'm going to botch the quote, but like Morpheus said in the matrix: "Free your mind."

I'm imagining you plan to not need partners in autonomous, or are grabbing all the step containers at once.

[dellagd]

Originally Posted by Christopher149

I'm imagining you plan to not need partners in autonomous, or are grabbing all the step containers at once.

That dimension fits right in with the distance the containers are apart from each other.

Whelp that's one ambiguous comment solved...

[xXhunter47Xx]

A million times yes.
Doing the math (which I won't bother to bore any of you here with), you will quickly figure out that AUTO greatly helps.
Think about it logically as well, the more points you score, the higher your average will be, correct? Wouldn't you want a high average?

I think at the least teams should be going for a robot set. Even if the programming on the team isn't strong, I'm sure they can have the wheels spin for a set amount of time to move into the AUTO zone.

[Jared Russell]

I think there will be events where the autonomous high score is 12.

I think there will be events where the mean autonomous score is below 4.

I think there will be events where the mode autonomous score is 0.