[FTC]: Autonomous?

[NalaTI]

Originally Posted by John_1102

What I'm finding is that the infared sensor is extreamly inaccurate.

At the NorCal tournament our IR Sensor based routine was accurate enough to typically get 7-8 balls (the pre-loads) into the high goal during autonomous. We do currently use dead reckoning to follow the goal as it spins around though - we're looking at how to avoid that for World.

We brought three autonomous routines and used two of them... At world we're planning on bringing at least 8.

[JesseK]

All I can say is that autonomouses that do not work are the difference between a sloppy close defeat and a clean surefire win . Any defensive or offensive strategy can be overcome by simply applying the necessary pressure via a good autonomous strategy. The teleop after two opposing offensive autonomouses will be a match for the record books.

We will not make the same mistakes in Atlanta, will we Buddy?

There's a way to make the IR sensor VERY accurate. You simply have to apply what most teams did with the FRC camera in 2007 to get it working properly with the green light, and placement is KEY.

[JohnFogarty]

The code I looked at for our teams 2007 camera is only slightly useful, I wrote a base code within several if, then statements just to see values come back on the screen. It can be good, if you have the time to write 100 lines or so of code.

We have strategies that my Drive team is formulating to help make autonomous better. We also added a new addition to keep balls from escaping when we open a ball chute, with a wide enough angle so none of the balls can pass without entering our hopper which takes up 75% of our robot = holding lots-o-balls.

The color sensor is really nice but it's range is limited. I have to dead tell it how to get to the goal, but once it's there it makes the minor adjustments to get in line to shoot.

Yeah Our Autonomous was a key factor on how we won one of our regionals, we had the high score of the day but ended up having a failure in the Finals match 2 but luckily we scored 5 in the high goal during autonomous so we won the match. I hate failures but we are training our Field team to be able to fix any problem in 3 minutes or less, we only really have one part of our robot that can fail and now that we changed it's design it's a really quick fix.

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by John_1102

Yeah Our Autonomous was a key factor on how we won one of our regionals, we had the high score of the day but ended up having a failure in the Finals match 2 but luckily we scored 5 in the high goal during autonomous so we won the match. I hate failures but we are training our Field team to be able to fix any problem in 3 minutes or less, we only really have one part of our robot that can fail and now that we changed it's design it's a really quick fix.

Maintenance was pretty much the only reason we did as well as we did in VA. Every match was sloppy, and we still don't understand why the balls kept falling 6-8" short of the outer goal on the field whereas in the practice field they were getting plenty of distance. Autonomous would have made the whole point moot like it did for them in DE, but code rework meant that we didn't have the same autonomous that they had in DE. Redundancy and simple maintenance were why we survived as well as we did in VA, but in the end it wasn't enough to seal the overall win.

[JohnFogarty]

Yeah matinence problems are a killer at the begining of the SC reigonal our shooter came loose from it's axle, and it didn't get to the max speed high enough to shoot in the goal, But in the end we figured it our before we played our first match.

I hate how you can line the robot up perfectly and it still for some retarded reason, one or two balls still won't fall in the Goal. ahaha

[Andrew Remmers]

Exploding Bacon has 22 autonomous modes each doing different routines and combinations of scoring, collecting balls and defense. And thats just scratching the surface of what we could have done! :O

[NalaTI]

After going in as captain of alliance #1 and seeing the robot fail because of a faulty NXT wire, in the first round of the semifinals, I can definitely say that maintenance, and good preparation for each round is a key factor.

As far as balls shooting different, we've definitely found that the gold balls shoot different than the others, and the regular balls shoot way different (shorter) than any that are not the official ones...

[JohnFogarty]

Yeah you are right about the yellow ball flying different. though we haven't missed a shot with one yet like 5 times in one day xD.

20 AUTONOMOUS PROGRAMS!!!! WHAT IN THE HECK!!! lol, if only I didn't have to program our FRC bot I might have the time to do that, but as of now ummmm NO!! xD

Our team has something that a lot of teams don't speed at picking up balls so fast that we could gather 20 balls in 3 seconds, and our other team Atomix can do the same they are one of the only teams getting a Helix design to work.

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by John_1102

Our team has something that a lot of teams don't speed at picking up balls so fast that we could gather 20 balls in 3 seconds, and our other team Atomix can do the same they are one of the only teams getting a Helix design to work.

One of our sister teams, 354, got a helix to work very nicely. It holds ~20 balls and can empty itself in ~6 seconds from what I saw this weekend. Not sure about the pickup rate, but it's not really a big deal with a passive gate mechanism.

[buddyb]

Originally Posted by John_1102

20 AUTONOMOUS PROGRAMS!!!! WHAT IN THE HECK!!! lol, if only I didn't have to program our FRC bot I might have the time to do that, but as of now ummmm NO!! xD

I second both points made here, and congratulate Exploding Bacon on having so many autonomouses.

Because of the character limit imposed by the NXT's tiny screen, making a single program with a menu of modes to pick from may help out the drivers a bit; selecting Blue, then Score Preloaded is *apparently* much easier to read than B_SPre_Auto. XD

[JohnFogarty]

There is one thing that, I hate is the FRC CRio doesn't have a LCD screen at all so if nothings in it you'll never know.

Yeah, HEY Exploding Bacon!!! is one of your FTC team programmers on your FRC team?? I'm heading down with 1102 next week to Florida so we should talk man

So I know this isn't the forums for strategy but what are your plans for nationals??

[buddyb]

Originally Posted by John_1102

There is one thing that, I hate is the FRC CRio doesn't have a LCD screen at all so if nothings in it you'll never know.

Yeah, HEY Exploding Bacon!!! is one of your FTC team programmers on your FRC team?? I'm heading down with 1102 next week to Florida so we should talk man

So I know this isn't the forums for strategy but what are your plans for nationals??

Yup. Download code, reboot, ensure "Robot code" light shows green, put on field. Otherwise, your changes may not have taken effect. [[We've had a few times where downloading the code ended up not doing anything.]]

We have a decent bot, so I think we'll do well in worlds. I really want to see other designs and learn new things, though. After all, it isn't a FIRST championship if you're not going all googly-eyed over someone else's bot/code.

[JohnFogarty]

I hate that light thing!!!! SO MUCH!!! If anything goes wrong it's like an oops oh well sort of thing.

IDK bout the code part, no one was using NXT-G last year at nationals except me when I was on 1102. Though i have to say my transition into RobotC and LabVIEW was quite easy.

Our robot at the beginning was a child, but thing is starting to grow it's wings esp. since we beat out two of our own teams 1102, and 3923 who won SC State Day 1. We got beaten by the on day 2 playing defense against 315 and burned out our right motor in the semifinals but still went on to the finals, We re geared the system to have the speed and power of ten bears. and it ended up working for us without the slightest pit stop in TN.

The best part of nationals is going to be there is a team from Maryland also called G-FORCE, and we have been talking and if we're on an alliance or against each other it's due to be a funny match. Also weirdly our robots turned our slightly similar shooter wise.

[Andrew Remmers]

Originally Posted by John_1102

There is one thing that, I hate is the FRC CRio doesn't have a LCD screen at all so if nothings in it you'll never know.

Yeah, HEY Exploding Bacon!!! is one of your FTC team programmers on your FRC team?? I'm heading down with 1102 next week to Florida so we should talk man

So I know this isn't the forums for strategy but what are your plans for nationals??

Actually our "head programmer" graduated last year but he goes to UCF so he is a mentor for our FRC team. The FTC team's coach is a programmer for Simsol, he taught most of us the basics of programming and then those interested in programming, I basically CADed the entire robot, i also designed some functions of the bot just to add more automodes to the robot... lets just say that if we were going to worlds and i could build my new drive train we could easily have 50 autonomous'.

The programming section of the team basically have worked for quite a while on the automodes considering the robot hasnt changed really since the first competition.

[JohnFogarty]

having about 5-7 people on my team doesn't allow much of a team for programming.

And realizing now why would you want so many??
That would open a HUGE margin of error,
I would take 5-6 of the best ones and make the them godly perfect.

Ours are getting close to that, but I still have kinks to work out.