Forcing autonomous to run

[Tim Arnold]

When I was trying to test some autonomous code on our old robot, to make a very long story short, I learned that you must have a competition port switch/dongle (or short it out with a paperclip; be sure to understand the pinout first; thank you Intellitek support!).

Anyway, I've got it working now through shorting, but I was pulling my hair out over it when I first started testing. I used a tether cable and changed the team number to 0000 and autonomous would run fine, the terminal window would show it running, but the motors would not turn (they worked fine in operator control, and in auton after I shorted the competition port - not a code problem). I'm curious if this is some sort of safety thing, or its not supported anymore with the robot controller, easyc, or what. I've noticed with the vex system that if the remote isn't on you can't drive the motors so I thought there might be something similar on the FRC now.

[Kingofl337]

Were the OI and RC still connected when the team was set to 0000? I don't think this feature is used very often I know we never tested for it.

[Tim Arnold]

I followed the 2005/06 (Couldn't find a 2007 version; I'm using this on an 06 controller anyway) RC Reference Guide. It describes the following:

13. Autonomous Mode...
If you wish to run the Robot Controller exclusively in Autonomous Mode, one way to do this is to set your team number to zero. This is done by setting the team number on your OI to zero, linking your OI and RC by tether, and then disconnecting from tether. After your RC is reset it will be in Autonomous
Mode.

To exit Autonomous mode if your team number is zero, you must re-tether and change the team number to anything but zero.

As I described above, it did seem to work, outputting print statements as it was supposed to, although unable to actually run motors.