What Are You Doing During Autonomous Period?

[oddjob]

Re: What Are You Doing During Autonomous Period?

I'm watching the match, that's what I'm doing.

With luck, the robot will be moving and kicking.

[PAR_WIG1350]

I was told we are programing auto in Boston. Might get done before then. I don't know.

[Radical Pi]

At the moment? Nothing. When we can get it working? Kick, drive forward, Kick, drive forward, kick. Our robot is short enough that we probably don't have to worry about getting out of the way

[darkangel]

We've got the simple drive-kick one, and, as far as I've seen, it's fairly accurate. Not sure if it can score goals (and I probably won't be sure until WPI), but it can get the balls over the bump, no problem.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

We will be staying out of our teammates' way when they try to kick and not incurring penalties, among other things.

I suggest you all do the same.

[ideasrule]

We're free to place the balls ourselves??? Until reading this thread, I thought the balls were placed randomly by field management. I got this impression after reading the rules, AND two people I've asked told me the same thing.

Our code can use the camera to track balls, but if we can place the balls ourselves, that capability will be useless. We can just drive forwards until the light sensors come on, kick, and repeat.

[JamesCH95]

We've got modes where we drive and kick 1, 2, or 3 times, though with how wide our kicker is I think we're going to program in a "shotgun" move where we herd 2 or 3 balls together on our kicker and then blast them all over when we get close to the bump.

[Taylor]

What Are You Doing During Autonomous Period?

Praying.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by ideasrule

We're free to place the balls ourselves??? Until reading this thread, I thought the balls were placed randomly by field management. I got this impression after reading the rules, AND two people I've asked told me the same thing.

Our code can use the camera to track balls, but if we can place the balls ourselves, that capability will be useless. We can just drive forwards until the light sensors come on, kick, and repeat.

I didn't think this was that difficult to understand:

<G09> BALL Starting Positions – Prior to the MATCH, each ALLIANCE is provided with six BALLS to be placed on the FIELD. The BALLS must be placed on a STARTING GRID location prior to the MATCH start. When the FIELD is viewed from the ALLIANCE STATION, the BALLS must be placed on the right side of the CENTER LINE, with one BALL in the near ZONE, two BALLS in the MIDFIELD, and three BALLS in the far ZONE. The BALLS must not be in contact with a ROBOT at the start of the MATCH.

OK, they could have said "provided with six BALLS which they place on the FIELD." That would have made it a little clearer. But still, if the alliance is provided with the balls, they aren't then taken away from the alliance to be put on the field. "Provided" means that they are in the alliance's possession. And if there was a process for someone else to place the balls, the rules would have specified that process. Such as the numbered location of the tetras in Triple Play, or the randomizer video game in Overdrive.

[goodsky]

Exploding Bacon has 6 new programming students this year! Because of this we decided to go for the simple approach of driving straight (with a PID loop) and kicking at the right time in the appropriate direction using encoders and the gyro. So far this has been a pretty effective method!

Even without the encoders and gyro, this can be done with dead reckoning. It goes to show that this is another great game to attempt 100% of robots doing something in autonomous mode!

[ideasrule]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

I didn't think this was that difficult to understand:OK, they could have said "provided with six BALLS which they place on the FIELD." That would have made it a little clearer. But still, if the alliance is provided with the balls, they aren't then taken away from the alliance to be put on the field. "Provided" means that they are in the alliance's possession. And if there was a process for someone else to place the balls, the rules would have specified that process. Such as the numbered location of the tetras in Triple Play, or the randomizer video game in Overdrive.

In my defense, I was simplifying things a little in my last post. I initially thought the alliance was allowed to place the balls themselves, but wasn't completely sure, so I asked two other people. They were both $@#$@#$@#$@# sure that I was wrong, so I just believed them without re-checking the rules.

A big "oops" on my part. I'll have to rethink our autonomous strategy.

[jspatz1]

Kicking all the balls that are in our zone into the goal.

[thefro526]

Crying - Because we don't have an autonomous mode.

Or

Yelling - Because our programmer didn't make an autonomous mode.

It's 50/50 either way.

[PIDman]

We are just going forward until we detect a ball and then kick it. We are just lining the balls up in a row to make a whole lot easier.

[Egg 3141592654]

We deploy, because no amount of pre-charged tank pressure can get that kicker going in enough time to do much