Do you think FIRST should extend the autonomous time

[JohnM]

Do you think FIRST should extend the autonomous time to somewhere like 30 seconds? That way it would make autonomous about as critical as teleop is to the game score. I think this would challenge the programmers on teams more. Plus it makes our robots more like robots. What do you guys think?

EDIT:
Also give your reasoning if you want to.

[audietron]

For This year i think the time is long enough for shooting 1-3 balls and driving forward.
Last year bit longer would only help a finite number of teams that could go to the center line, pick up discs and shoot (987, 2056).
If auto had a reasonable challenge mechanically like this year that did not require too many 1 time use designs and focuses more on the programming skill and sensors. Such as a more precise area of the field the robot must go ,climb something or even mini bot I think it would be necessary.

[JohnM]

Originally Posted by audietron

For This year i think the time is long enough for shooting 1-3 balls and driving forward.
Last year bit longer would only help a finite number of teams that could go the the center line and pick up discs and shoot (987, 2056).
If auto had a reasonable challenge mechanically like this year but with more to be challenged by for programming such as a more precise area of the field the robot must go ,climb something or even mini bot I think it would be necessary.

What if FIRST was to extend this, but also changed the rules where human players were part of the autonomous also?

[Iaquinto.Joe]

The problem with an autonomous over 10-15 sec is there is very little suspense or spectator appeal. No robots will be interacting and nobody will be at the controls. I feel 10-15 sec is a good balance between programming challenge and spectator appeal.

[bduddy]

It has to be decided on a game-by-game basis. For this year, it wouldn't make sense having much more than 10 seconds. For, say, FIRST Overdrive, I would have liked to see it be a little longer.

[Abhishek R]

Originally Posted by JohnM

What if FIRST was to extend this, but also changed the rules where human players were part of the autonomous also?

They already compensate autonomous with teleop by giving bonuses to tasks completed in the autonomous period. This year, the period is short because there isn't much to do other than shoot a ball and drive forward. Human players can technically interact through the use of the Microsoft Kinect...however anything more than this, in my opinion, would take away from the meaning of "autonomous."

I do however think they should increase the hot goal bonus, there's a lot that goes into being able to detect that, and 5 points doesn't seem like much to me. Some of the points have been a bit out of whack in my opinion (why is the truss worth the same as a score in the high goal if scoring high is much harder to do?) but that's probably best saved for another thread.

[audietron]

Originally Posted by Iaquinto.Joe

The problem with an autonomous over 10-15 sec is there is very little suspense or spectator appeal. No robots will be interacting and nobody will be at the controls. I feel 10-15 sec is a good balance between programming challenge and spectator appeal.

I agree with this. It would only be exciting on Einstein or at IRI the rest of the time would be somewhat slow and boring.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

You can score 75 in auto this year. Most qualification matches do not peak 100 points. This seems plenty important.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by JohnM

Do you think FIRST should extend the autonomous time to somewhere like 30 seconds? That way it would make autonomous about as critical as teleop is to the game score. I think this would challenge the programmers on teams more. Plus it makes our robots more like robots. What do you guys think?

EDIT:
Also give your reasoning if you want to.

No. The fact is most autonomous periods are boring. Many robots don't even move. Having 30 seconds of 5 robots sitting still while 1 moves forward, does some simple task for 5 seconds and then sits still is BORING.

And I assert that auton is already critical. There were matches last weekend in which we pretty much won in auton.

[buchanan]

Simply extending the time period for autonomous as we now know it, as others have already observed, has limited value.

Shouldn't it be stipulated that along with more time, the expectation would be to add more challenging content as well? That certainly seems worthwhile to me.

Perhaps the OP can clarify what the poll is intended to ask; otherwise your answer depends more on what you think the question assumes.

[jvriezen]

My suggestion (probably for IRI, since it is too late now for FIRST) is the following:

1) Additional points for an assist during Auton. This was attempted at 10K Lakes where the 2nd ball was pushed forward by the non-shooting bot to feed it into the intake of the shooting bot that had already advanced into the blue zone. The intake didn't didn't take-in, unfortunately. It would require more than the 2nd bot to be just touching the ball. It would have to at least herd it or carry it.

2) More points for CATCH. This is always a crowd pleaser, and much more difficult than the TRUSS, so it should be worth more points than a TRUSS.

[waialua359]

We are already at week 6 events.
Too late to change a game that everyone else has already planned, built, and tested for.

Sorry, cant tell if you mean at later events this season or for next season and beyond.

If its next season, depends on the game.

[Joseph Smith]

Autonomous is already just as important as teleop, if not more so. You have a chance to score up to 75 points, virtually defense-free. It can set the stage for the entire match. Climbing back up after the other alliance gets a big lead in auton can be extremely difficult. Besides, a longer autonomous (assuming that they would add the potential for more scoring, because otherwise what's the point) would only widen the gap between high-caliber teams and teams who struggle or lack programming resources.

[nuggetsyl]

We have teams with driver control that can't do anything for 30 secs. Their are several teams this year that can't even drive forward to get 5 point. Can you see where I stand on this.

[Christopher149]

Originally Posted by waialua359

We are already at week 6 events.
Too late to change a game that everyone else has already planned, built, and tested for.

Sorry, cant tell if you mean at later events this season or for next season and beyond.

If its next season, depends on the game.

The poll title says "Do you think FIRST should extend autonomous to 30 or more seconds for future games?"

edit: emphasis mine