Programmers on the Drive Team

[JamesCH95]

Originally Posted by AWoL

A normal mecanum drive moves forwards/backwards at 100% speed, strafes at 50% speed, and moves at a proportional percentage at angles in between. With my code, our drive moves at the same speed in each direction, essentially handling like an omni-drive. Hope I explained it.

Why do you think that this is advantageous?

[lark95]

Originally Posted by JamesCH95

Why do you think that this is advantageous?

I would thinks that this would be better because it provides all the axis of motion with the same proportion. This gives a much more consistent rang of motion needed to get the same motion.

This really comes into play if a team has less time to practice. Driver can develop the muscle memory needed to drive much faster.

[pntbll1313]

A few people have touched on this point but I want to stress that it shouldn't matter if the drive team has programmers on it or not. The Programmers NEED to make everything as easy, intuitive, and efficient for the drivers as possible. The drivers are your customer here. The drivers NEED to tell the programmers anything/everything that would make their lives easier.

The idea that a programmer being on the drive team in some way makes any difference on how easy the robot is for the driver to control is just odd to me...

[GreyingJay]

Originally Posted by pntbll1313

The idea that a programmer being on the drive team in some way makes any difference on how easy the robot is for the driver to control is just odd to me...

You are right that what it boils down to is that the drivers need to talk to the programmers and vice versa. When it's one guy doing both then it's easy to have him code up exactly what he wants.

[Woody910]

Our programmer wrote a code so our bot runs in a sort of auto-pilot mode during tele-op. They flip a switch, and everyone on the drive team folds their arms, sits back, and watches the bot go to work. Our HP still has to feed totes to the bot, sadly, so he still works.

[lark95]

Originally Posted by Woody910

Our programmer wrote a code so our bot runs in a sort of auto-pilot mode during tele-op. They flip a switch, and everyone on the drive team folds their arms, sits back, and watches the bot go to work. Our HP still has to feed totes to the bot, sadly, so he still works.

That is impressive. Does it move the stack to the platforms or does it just make the stack?

[Woody910]

Originally Posted by lark95

That is impressive. Does it move the stack to the platforms or does it just make the stack?

Our bot spans the area from the Human Player Station to the closest Scoring Platform, and the stacks are formed within the bot, and moved through the bot to the scoring platform without moving. There's a picture to help you see and understand.

[Lij2015]

Originally Posted by GreyingJay

You are right that what it boils down to is that the drivers need to talk to the programmers and vice versa. When it's one guy doing both then it's easy to have him code up exactly what he wants.

The only true advantage it gives me is that if I have a problem I don't need to try communicate what it is to anyone(sometimes it can be hard to explain), I just go and fix it.

It's also convenient when the programmers are testing the robot(we have both drive team members on programming this year) that we can get the practice while the other sub teams keep working.

[JamesCH95]

Originally Posted by lark95

I would thinks that this would be better because it provides all the axis of motion with the same proportion. This gives a much more consistent rang of motion needed to get the same motion.

This really comes into play if a team has less time to practice. Driver can develop the muscle memory needed to drive much faster.

This falls into the 'we geared are transmissions too fast, but it's okay because we slowed them in code' fallacy. It cripples the drivetrain's performance artificially. I've never had a driver that couldn't immediately deal with the difference in speed with mecanum.