We cannot get autonomous_mode to become 1; it is always 0. We hooked up a switch to the Competition port and it didn’t work but the circuit does complete between pins 8 and 5 on the DB-15 connector. Help?
I had the same problem… and still have. XP However, what I ended up doing was tethering the RC to the OI and switching to autonomous mode that way. It’s annoyingly tedious, but being able to test the mode is better than not.
To switch, all you need to do is turn both the OI and RC on and set the team number to 0000. Disconnect the tether, turn the 'bot off and the next time you turn it on, the autonomous mode should run if you don’t have any programming errors. 'Course it may run as soon as the team number has switched, so put the 'bot up on blocks first 
Hope this helps!
~kat
Nevermind, found out that it really didn’t work. I accidentally touched the metallic sides of the connector when testing it. Meh.