It all started innocuously enough with a
Q&A entry a week after kickoff:
Q. Are we allowed to use the kinect as part of our driver station during autonomous mode this year?
A. There are no rules prohibiting this.
And was
reiterated after build season:
Q. Per Q55, the Kinect is allowed as part of our driver station during autonomous. Please clarify: May a Driver, remaining compliant with G16 & G17, use the Kinect that is part of the driver station to control the Robot during Auto?
A. Yes.
These responses opened the door for the types of indirect control of the robots we saw in autonomous, most notable
CheesyVision, but also the Kinect control used by us and 973. I have one simple question about all this, Should indirect control of the robot during autonomous mode (i.e. CheesyVision and Kinect control) be allowed for the 2015 season? My personal opinion is that allowing these forms of control removes the autonomy from Autonomous Mode (we had close to complete operator control over our robot in Autonomous once we started using the Kinect). Regardless of what I think, I'm curious to see what the community thinks. Was the autonomous excitement on Einstein enough to justify this type of control, or would you prefer Autonomous Mode to remain autonomous.