Autonomous Longer????

[Phalanx]

I've said all this before and I'll say it again and I'll keep on saying it....

The only drawbacks are I've seen and heard from teams that they don't plan the time or invest the time and effort to develop autonomous routines prior to shipping the robot. Then they get to a regional decide they would like some autonomous, but only get 5 minutes on a pratice field or a few minutes between rounds to develop it which just isn't enough time to develop, test and debug a sofisticated and complex autonomous routine.

Even with that being said I still believe the autonomous period should be lengthened slightly with more options and opportunities than a single task or two. I suggest allowing for multiple different challenges with some harder than others.

Some can be done with simple dead reckoning; others will require the use of different sensors or combinations of different sensors to meet the challenge. The greater the challenge the greater the bonus.

This way teams that don't yet posse the technical knowledge and skills for the more complex tasks have a chance to learn those skills and succeed through the simpler ones. Using the success of the simpler ones as building blocks for the future.

The teams that do posse the technical knowledge and skills are now presented with a challenge that will push the limitis and test those skills.

By doing it in this way, everyone is given a challenge and a chance to succeed, as well as being given motivation to improve thier knowledge, skills and performances to meet greater challenges over time.

So I also suggest make it a three tier scoring autonomous challenge... a 1, 3, 5 or a 2, 4, 8 scale or similar for the easy, moderate and difficult task respectively.

This program in my opinion is designed to enhance and challenge the students. Not everything should be made easy, simple or plug n play. It's the learning, the challenge, the knowledge gain and the creativity that comes from it that is important.