Preparing CS students for the Robotics Revolution

[Bryan Herbst]

I believe that the programming aspect can be plenty difficult as it is right now. My team has always struggled to get autonomous working properly, and interesting drive/control schemes such as mecanum drive make life more interesting for us programmers.

Part of the challenge is for the programmers to find something to do. This year, they could track the goals and pop up a green light on the dashboard when the driver was in an optimal shooting position/range. Once we teach our programmers to look for improvements such as these, they will find more work for themselves.

Unfortunately, the biggest block I see to our programmers these days are the limited autonomous periods. This year was horrendous- 15 seconds with absolutely no bonus reward for having a good autonomous? My team still went for it, but didn't expend too much effort on improving our autonomous code because it just wasn't worth it. FIRST needs to provide coders with a better stage for showcasing their talents. Longer autonomous (maybe 30 seconds) with a bonus.

[Jon Stratis]

I don't think we can understate how difficult autonomous programming is, especially in a highly interactive game like first.

Back in school, I took a grad course in autonomous robotics, along with 29 other students. We essentially spent the entire semester broken up into teams of 3 build and programming small autonomous robots out of Lego's and Handy boards, with one straight forward task - drive around an arena, pick up plastic Easter eggs, and return them to your "nest" (identified by a polarized light source). We competed 2v2, and there were probably 100 eggs in the arena.

It was rare to have more than 10 points in a match. In fact, it was rare to have more than two robots actually working correctly out of the 4 on the field. And this was from grad students with much more experience and much more time (a full semester, at least 3 hours spent on it per day, almost every day).

Now, all that said, it's certainly possible for a team to build up the knowledge and experience they need to build successful, complex autonomous modes. It would require extensive knowledge and experience with PID loops and different forms of feedback. Spending time in the off season working with these, and over several years you could develop the capabilities to make an impressive autonomous mode.

But then what about the rookie teams? How do we make something so complex still accessible to them? How do we give them the time and resources needed to run their code on prototype/test robots in order to work out the bugs?

Our team has only been around for 4 years. I can still remember our first year, and the sheer joy we had the first time the robot actually moved. We tried to do an autonomous mode that year, but we didn't have the experience, as a team, to be able to do it.

[GaryVoshol]

As Woodie said in the 2005 Kickoff: "We know autonomous is hard. That's why we make FLL do it."

[Bryan Herbst]

Originally Posted by eagle33199

But then what about the rookie teams? How do we make something so complex still accessible to them? How do we give them the time and resources needed to run their code on prototype/test robots in order to work out the bugs?

Our team has only been around for 4 years. I can still remember our first year, and the sheer joy we had the first time the robot actually moved. We tried to do an autonomous mode that year, but we didn't have the experience, as a team, to be able to do it.

I was about to make this point exactly. While there are many users here on CD (and out there on FIRST teams across the globe) who are certainly capable of creating some good autonomous code, many teams simply cannot. This includes a fair number of veteran team.

This unfortunately is what I believe to be the reason that this years autonomous mode provided no real reward for good autonomous programming. As always, the GDC is stuck in an endless debate over balancing difficulty for those with the skill to create advanced autonomous robots and keeping the game accessible to those without that skill.

I really don't know how to fix the problem. I agree with most of the posts here that one of the first steps is to get more dedicated computer science mentors involved. I also believe that the GDC needs to significantly redesign the game process to better accommodate advanced autonomous modes.