Piggie Plotter: Changing the very nature of Autonomous Mode

[Oromus]

Team 1902, Exploding Bacon, would like to present our newest project:

Piggy Plotter


Overview:

Piggy Plotter is a GUI-based Autonomous mapping program developed completely by team 1902 during the 2015 build season. With Piggy Plotter, you can design an autonomous on a completely to-scale replica of the Recycle Rush field. You can create a robot, configure it's starting position and size, and then set up commands to drive to certain locations and to perform specific actions. When you're done, you can export the autonomous to a .auto file and use it as your autonomous!



How does this work?

Now, by this point you must be saying/asking "How do this actually get used as an autonomous?". Allow me to explain: when you're done designing your autonomous, you can export it to a .auto file. The .auto file contains all the information on what your robot needs to do for your auto to work. Here is an example of a very simple .auto file:

drive:10:10]turn:180]lift:1]wait:2]lift:0]

This is where YOU come in. All you have to do is write code on your robot to be able to read .auto files and do what they want you to. For example, a team would have to implement some way of getting their robot to be able to move X number of inches. Once they did that, the robot could read the .auto file, see the "drive:10:10]" command within it, and drive 10 inches forward. Don't worry if you have no idea how to take a .auto file and read the data from it; we'll help you! All you have to do is ask.

Piggy Plotter, with the exception of drive and turn commands, allow you to name your commands whatever you want, in order to simplify the implementing of .auto file processing. For example, you can have Piggy Plotter do a "herpDerp" command and then write code on the robot for processing a "herpDerp" command.



Our dream for Piggy Plotter.

Team 1902 hopes that, in the future, Piggy Plotter will change the very nature of how Autonomous Mode works. Instead of teams laboring over one or a few autonomouses, new autonomouses will be able to be created on a whim at competitions. This will allow autonomous to be more about strategy and less about being a large programming hassle. Imagine a match at Einstein where an alliance comes around their alliance captain whom has Piggy Plotter on a tablet and is plotting out three brand-new autonomouses, all of which strategically work together. Imagine being able to change your autonomous to work around another team's autonomous without simply disabling your autonomous all-together. Imagine you (or your programmers) not spending all their time fine-tuning an autonomous just for it to become unneeded or need to be heavily changed. Imagine that you can create a new autonomous whenever you want and know that it will work the first try. This is our dream.

When can I have it?

Piggy Plotter is currently in a closed beta. Team 1902 plans to test, debug, and use Piggy Plotter at the Georgia Southern Classic Regional, the Orlando Regional, and (hopefully) St. Louis. If everything has gone smoothly, we will release a more polished version of Piggy Plotter right after Championships. Once we've released Piggy Plotter, we will release an official field file for each year's FRC competition.

I have a question/suggestion/comment.

Say it! This is a program we plan to share will all FRC teams, so we want your input! Other team members and I will try our best to answer your questions, reply to your comments, and implement your suggestions (if they're valid, of course).