Has Any Team Been Able to Find and Cap a Vision Tetra in Autonomous?

[Wayne C.]

Now that the bots are nearly done and the scrimmages are going on, has any team been able to find, lift and cap a vision tetra in the 15 sec autonomous period?

If so are there any mpegs available to see them in action?

Just curious.

WC

[nehalita]

there's a thread similar to this:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=33475

[Petey]

I was just going to post about this, actually.

Our lead controls mentor was just asking me to crunch some numbers on the subject. We've found that, if you are starting on the side (inside the blue line), and if your robot goes for the first center vision tetra, and if you measure at 90 degree angles assuming a zero turning radius and no time loss per turn, it is a 39.75 foot journey to be able to be in a position to stack on the center goal.

At 7 FPS--the middle ground between our robot's top speed of 10 FPS and bottom speed of 5 FPS--that takes about 5.7 seconds. Call it six, factoring in other problems.

If we assume 5 seconds to grab the vision tetra--not unreasonable--that gives you 11 seconds.

4 seconds to fight your way to the goal and score the tetra.

And that is assuming everything goes perfectly.

For this reason, the mentor will be putting together some serious numbers in an effort to ask FIRST to extend the autonomous mode to 25 seconds.

That is assuming that no one has had an inordinate amount of success with this issue. So, the question is...have you?

--Petey

[gburlison]

Originally Posted by Petey

I was just going to post about this, actually.

Our lead controls mentor was just asking me to crunch some numbers on the subject. We've found that, if you are starting on the side (inside the blue line), and if your robot goes for the first center vision tetra, and if you measure at 90 degree angles assuming a zero turning radius and no time loss per turn, it is a 39.75 foot journey to be able to be in a position to stack on the center goal.

At 7 FPS--the middle ground between our robot's top speed of 10 FPS and bottom speed of 5 FPS--that takes about 5.7 seconds. Call it six, factoring in other problems.

If we assume 5 seconds to grab the vision tetra--not unreasonable--that gives you 11 seconds.

4 seconds to fight your way to the goal and score the tetra.

And that is assuming everything goes perfectly.

For this reason, the mentor will be putting together some serious numbers in an effort to ask FIRST to extend the autonomous mode to 25 seconds.

That is assuming that no one has had an inordinate amount of success with this issue. So, the question is...have you?

--Petey

This is one of the reasons that we are not attempting the vision tetra during autonomous. We analyzed the problem and when our programmers did not think there was enough time in autonomous, we abandoned the idea. To change the rules, 2 days before shipping is not fair.

It is entirely possible that many teams will be able to cap the vision tetra. Those teams should be rewarded for their ingenuity and not have to worry about a competitor who can cap in 24 seconds. It is possible that these teams sacrificed pushing power ( or some other attribute ) to enable their robot to cap faster. If more teams can suddenly cap in auto then it will cheapen the accomplishment of those that can do it in 14 seconds.

It is bad enough that we might have to wait until after the shipment date to have a rule clarified, however to change a clearly defined rule this late in the process should be unthinkable.

[Nitroxextreme]

we too have decided to abandon capping with the vision tetra
and i agree that no rule change should happen to extend the autonomous period

does anyone know how many points you would get if during autonomous you hitted the hanging tetra down to the ground containing it within the big tetra

[Shu Song]

Our programmers are still at school right now trying to get auto to work. I'm not even gonna be suprsied to find them sleeping on the tech room floor tomorrow when I get there.

[Greg Marra]

Originally Posted by Nitroxextreme

does anyone know how many points you would get if during autonomous you hitted the hanging tetra down to the ground containing it within the big tetra

1 point for containing a tetra.

However it is worth noting that if no tetra is capped on that goal, you 'own' it for the sake of triple play 10 point bonuses.

[Wayne C.]

so I take it the answer is NO. Nobody has yet to accomplish the feat or is willing to admit it.

WC

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Petey

For this reason, the mentor will be putting together some serious numbers in an effort to ask FIRST to extend the autonomous mode to 25 seconds.
--Petey

Seriously, don't even bother. FIRST won't even consider changing the length of the autonomous mode.

I guarentee you there will be teams that can cap a vision tetra in autonomous.

[Brandon Holley]

We have found much success so far with our autonomous mode. Sorry no mpegs or anything yet...I'll try to get one for tomorrow.

[IndianChieftain]

Team 1241 was working all 6 weeks day and night to get the camera working and finding the tetra. we succeeded in that task. but trying to get an arm to pick it up off the floor and cap it within 15 seconds was the part that really gave us alot of trouble. 1241 can't cap the VT's, but we are thinking that we will be more succesful in defending the other alliance from capping than we would ourselves.

[Rombus]

We were gungho about doing the vision part, then the second week we realized are arm design may not be low enough to do it, so the cam got put on the backburner. Last week we decided to use the camera, so i built a quick mount. Our code is a hodgepodge of very simple commands (Find green, when tilt is down lift tetra and find yellow, when tilt is down lower tetra) so no idea if its going to work we were having so many issues with the camera and trying to get it to work today. First too long serial, then a super slow laptop, then a dead backup battery

Honistly i hope they dont change the rules. BUT Next year i want to see a 30sec -1 min automode with 2 min of gameplay, a 3 min game might be alot of fun!

[Nate Edwards]

Obviously they wont change the rules, because our robot is alreadly in the crate because we can knock down that hanging tetra and get to the vision tetra and get it high enough in 15 seconds, just not enough to go after the goal, its hard to do, you have to be fast moving, fast tracking and fast at raising the arm, im sure a few teams will be ok at it and might get it on but only a couple will get it capped and scored entirely on the center by the time auto is over. We tried it was pretty much impossible, but nothing hurts to try. We are still very happy with it.

Nate

[russell]

[skip over this part]I now have to admit that I was wrong when early in the season I predicted that many more teams would have successful autonomous modes this year than last year. I personally would support extending the autonomous period to 25 seconds, as the point of FIRST is not supposed to be to have a fair competition, but rather to promote learning and whatnot. As it is no one is going to be learning anything except that software engineers are smart, because the only teams that are going to be scoring in autonomous mode are teams that not only have professional software engineers writing their code, but also have engineers designing their robot, and have a lot of luck besides. Ok maybe that is a little bit of a stretch, but the autonomous mode is not supposed to be difficult to the point of impossibility, it is just supposed to be a challenge that can be overcome, and teams that are especially good will not only overcome the challenge, but will go beyond what is thought possible, and will help other teams do the same. Also I think FIRST is moving away from autonmous mode, and is becoming too much of a remote control car building and driving contest.[/skip]

Ok yeah I am done . To sum things up I think that autonomous mode should be extended. If you care why read above.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

As I like to say...

A good autonomous mode is not hard, just tedious. And since it depends on the mechanical subteams, it is hard to get done. We should be able to cap in auto mode, though.