Intresting Autonomous

[scoutmasterlord]

Today I watched a couple matches of the Traverse City FIRST Robotics District Competition. I mostly was watching the autonomous time. some teams have intresting autonomous.

[R.C.]

Originally Posted by scoutmasterlord

Today I watched a couple matches of the Traverse City FIRST Robotics District Competition. I mostly was watching the autonomous time. some teams have intresting autonomous.

Yes a ton of teams have an interesting autonomous, which matches or what did their auto do?

[scoutmasterlord]

team #201 their autonomous time, it spins in a circle untill autonomous is over.

[R.C.]

Originally Posted by scoutmasterlord

team #201 their autonomous time, it spins in a circle untill autonomous is over.

We are gonna use the same routine, go straight and then spin or go to our human player's post and get refilled.

[GODUX123]

We started it. They saw ours and copied it. They even told me. It was part of the reason that we won the regional, it worked amazing! No-one scored on us the entire district when we were in autonomous mode!

[GODUX123]

Where did you get the videos? I can't find any, anywhere!

[hipsterjr]

Originally Posted by GODUX123

We started it. They saw ours and copied it. They even told me.

wrong, every one copied 342. Our auton is "patented", just ask the announcers at Florida Regional from 2007

342 "patented distracting auton dance"

[TVan]

Originally Posted by GODUX123

We started it. They saw ours and copied it. They even told me. It was part of the reason that we won the regional, it worked amazing! No-one scored on us the entire district when we were in autonomous mode!

we did not make this autonomous up and were scored on in autonomus,
and we were on the winning alliance. Selected by 2645 (a Great Team, thank you ) and played with 247 (The Bears rock )

The most intresting or gut wrenching was our robot taking off at a slow speed than insted of one side forward and one backward both forward full speed into the driver station on the other side of the field. who ever thought up the bumpers on the driver station wall thank you. ( did you flash it )

Tim

[Lowfategg]

We don't like spinning automode since our human plays say its easier to score on than some other modes. It does look awesome.

[GGCO]

My team, 904, went with the track the trailer and score in it method. It works pretty well. It's still a little buggy, but we can fix that easily.

I did notice at Traverse City team 2645 also was tracking and shooting. I was wondering if one of their programmers could fill the rest of us in on what their secret was?!? From what I could tell the robot drove towards the target, found it, backed up when the image percent was too large, and then lobbed a cell into the trailer. Pretty impressive.

Anyone use an ultrasonic sensor for their auto mode?

[BigWhiteYeti]

They really need to give bonus points for robot scoring in auton. That is really impressive.

[GGCO]

Originally Posted by BigWhiteYeti

They really need to give bonus points for robot scoring in auton. That is really impressive.

Yeah, I totally agree. If your robot can score in autonomous every match (which I haven't seen) then it gives you an advantage, but only if you don't get a lot of balls in your trailer.

[thefro526]

I think 612 has a strong auto. They don't score in Autonomous because they chose not to but they can line themselves up almost perfectly with a trailer about 90% of the time.

[Hazmatt]

Originally Posted by GGCO

My team, 904, went with the track the trailer and score in it method. It works pretty well. It's still a little buggy, but we can fix that easily.

I did notice at Traverse City team 2645 also was tracking and shooting. I was wondering if one of their programmers could fill the rest of us in on what their secret was?!? From what I could tell the robot drove towards the target, found it, backed up when the image percent was too large, and then lobbed a cell into the trailer. Pretty impressive.

Anyone use an ultrasonic sensor for their auto mode?

We built our code from the "2 color servo tracking demo". Basically we looked at the part in the code that spit out the servo angles for the x-axis servo on the gimbal. These were an angle value and so consequently ranged from 0-170. We called angles 0-85 (85 = 170 / 2) "left turn". We made a function that linearly increased power to the drive wheels as the angle got closer to 0. angles 85-170 were considered "right turn" and were scaled the same way. additionally, we told the robot not to move if the camera wasn't currently tracking a target. After all of this, our robot would turn but not drive towards a target. Next we found the part in the code that spit out the "area %" of the target on the screen. We created a function that would add an amount to the drive speed of both motors (so that the motors would drive forward) that increased linearly based on the distance (area %) that the camera saw. Additionally, we added a switch on our robot to switch between the colors that the camera is currently tracking (green/pink or pink/green).

If you do this type of programming in Labview, I suggest that every time you make a multiplier in a function you first make a knob on the front panel so that you can "tweak" the outcome of the function. Then when you are done go to the block diagram, right click on the knob or dial and select "change to constant". Doing this will ensure that the numbers you have chosen in your functions always stay the same. If you leave them as a dial they will reset themselves.

We are currently working on getting the robot to move out on to the field 3 seconds initially, and then start tracking. Ideally we would have had a "field position switch" which would allow us 3 different autonomous modes, but unfortunately a firmware update disabled this ability for us. Also unfortunate was that we already had the control panel made with the switch mounted.

I wrote a ton, but I hope that lets you in on the "secret"

[Greg McKaskle]

and select "change to constant". Doing this will ensure that the numbers you have chosen in your functions always stay the same. If you leave them as a dial they will reset themselves.

This works fine. You can also right click on the knob or other control and go to Data Operations >> Make Current Value Default. That way they are there to tweak in the future if conditions change.

Greg McKaskle