What's your plan for Autonomous?

['lil robo-girl]

We have a very hopeful plan where we get our alliance mates to simply move to the autozone, then we'll stack the totes and put all three bins in the autozone in one 13-second sweep. It works fine in the model we made... but we all know how that can go astray.

So, what's everyone planning to do during auto? Take care of your own bin and tote? Just move the bot? Something bigger?

[MrJohnston]

Originally Posted by 'lil robo-girl

We have a very hopeful plan where we get our alliance mates to simply move to the autozone, then we'll stack the totes and put all three bins in the autozone in one 13-second sweep. It works fine in the model we made... but we all know how that can go astray.

So, what's everyone planning to do during auto? Take care of your own bin and tote? Just move the bot? Something bigger?

We plan to do the same thing for our primary autonomous routine... We'll have a couple or three others that will target the totes and RC's in the center so that we can work with pretty much anybody.

[EDesbiens]

We have many possible autonomous modes included in our code... We will choose depending on our allies and change it from our driver station... Here's a couple of examples :

1. Move forward (with a selector for the distance)
2. Don't move (if we have any problem on the robot or if an alliance wants to do something special)
3. Take a container and move forward
4. Take a container, move forward and put it down

And every other possibility you can't think about... We coded a nice looking dashboard showing which auto mode is in use, its description and where to place the robot on the field...

[jimwick]

Try to get as many green bins from the center step into our side of the field as possible. Assuming our alliance can stack totes the bins really can add to the score.

[Jared Russell]

Use sensors to collect data about the surrounding environment, then discard it and drive into walls.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

Use sensors to collect data about the surrounding environment, then discard it and drive into walls.

You downgraded to that? Last time I heard you skipped the whole collecting data and discarding it to just drive into walls. More efficient that way.



I think we're going to be moving. Not sure exactly what we'll be moving...

[Chris Endres]

score points.

[Christopher149]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

Use sensors to collect data about the surrounding environment, then discard it and drive into walls.

This read like an old spotlighted post.

Anyways, we plan to a set of switches to select between modes. While I'm not the programming team, I think/hope it will include:
do nothing
drive forward
grab a tote or container and drive it to the auto zone
grab the three yellow totes for a tote stack after our partners move two recycling containers out of the way (maybe, this is kind of a stretch goal).

[GeeTwo]

We do plan to have multiple autonomous routines, so we can adapt to our alliance.

• The simplest is basically the same as the "mobility bonus" from last year - just drive forward a fraction of a second.
• The main one is to build a 3-tote stack and carry it into the auto zone. We're already planning a largely automated "align/stack/lift" bottom-stacking routine for tele-op using a pair of Sharp optical range finders, a string potentiometer, the camera, and touch sensors on the lift; the algorithm should work equally well for grey and yellow totes. To score a tote stack, we just need to dust off our old reflective target code and use it to get close enough to each yellow tote to make the A/S/L work. We start behind the right tote (as viewed from our alliance wall), A/S/L, back up, drive to the next, A/S/L, back up, drive to the last, A/S/L. Then, to get everything into the auto zone, we spin 180 degrees (we have a gyro) and drive forward until our "curb feelers" find the back scoring platform. Then we back up a few feet, drop the load, and back away a bit more.
• More TBD. Our grabber should be good at getting a single RC, but not at moving all three, or at getting them from behind the landfill, so we just add some minor variations, such as a tote stacker that works on the alliance wall side rather than the step side, and a driver that also takes advantage of the curb feelers.

[Fields]

We have 2 modes this year.

1) drive forward (push a bin with us?)
2) grab bin 1, grab 3 yellow totes and stack, set bin 1 down (not tall enough to put on top of the stack)

[c.shu]

We plan on doing a 3 tote stack and 3 container set then pull all 4 containers off of the step and line up at the HP station for our full field stacking mechanism. And that's just the first 5 seconds of autonomous.

[EDesbiens]

Originally Posted by c.shu

And that's just the first 5 seconds of autonomous.

And then, the robot builds ten stacks of grey totes and, during the last seven seconds, it deploys a wall to block incoming litters...

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

Use sensors to collect data about the surrounding environment, then discard it and drive into walls.

Sounds like you've had a rough day at work recently.

[PayneTrain]

We took a really bold strategic decision to spend our autonomous period making contributions to our alliance's efforts to get high scores.

[c.shu]

Originally Posted by EDesbiens

And then, the robot builds ten stacks of grey totes and, during the last seven seconds, it deploys a wall to block incoming litters...

Wow how did you know?