Most... um... "entertaining" autonomous.

[dtengineering]

Okay, there is a poll out there for the best autonomous, which typically means that the robot accomplished what it was SUPPOSED to do... like scoring keepers and stuff like that.

But every now and then something goes just a bit unhinged and... well... the robot gets "creative". We had the pleasure of putting on a show for the opening ceremony crowd at Portland... first weekend... second match of the tournament... that set a high standard for creativity and drama... if not -unfortunately - effectiveness.

Take a look here as we demonstrate mastery of the pirouette. (Thanks, by the way, to our partners (360, I believe) for putting us back into action.)

Then, perhaps, post some links to other auto modes that -- if not effective -- were at least entertaining.

As for the "what the heck"? Well, this is what happens when you don't quite give the programmers enough time to test their code (a well-established tradition amongst many teams, I am sure). We had three sonar sensors on the front of the robot that were to detect the base of the rack and position us to score. Unfortunately the mecanum drive code used PID speed controls running off encoders... and used the user routines timing loop to keep track of time, but that loop was missing in auto. So while the sonar was working (I think... we didn't usually hit anything) the robot had no clue what the wheels were really doing. Or at least that is what the programmers tell me... they had it working pretty good in telop mode, but this was our first real try at full auto. We considered a few fixes, but eventually settled for just driving forward a bit and setting the arm into position to pick up a tube. But if only the "claw" had opened and we had scored this keeper... what a way it would have been to start the year!

Enjoy,

Jason