Hi everyone, wanted to post about a few software projects we’ve been working on over at Team SHARP 3260. As a first-time mentor, I discovered the software engineers traditionally have very little to work on the robot and decided to remedy this by building a physics simulator for the 2020 game. Oftentimes in robotics software development it’s helpful to have a close approximation of the real robot to play with, discover bugs, and iterate extremely quickly. You can even use them automate nightly testing to make sure old features aren’t breaking as you add new ones or perform driver trials when the robot isn’t built yet. Our sim was designed with this and more in mind. You can clone it and try it yourself here: GitHub - SarahHeinzHouseFRC/frcsim2020: Simulator for Team 3260 for FIRST Robotics Challenge 2020
When the pandemic hit, we unfortunately didn’t to compete at all this season. While working remotely, we decided to take things even further with the sim and took a crack at building a 100% autonomous robot to play the 2020 game. We modeled a cheap 2D LIDAR in the sim and built a full autonomy stack around it. You can read the docs here or run our code in the sim yourself: GitHub - SarahHeinzHouseFRC/automated_infinite_recharge: Python client for SHARP FRC simulator. Uses simulated LIDAR and 2020 robot to autonomously play Infinite Recharge. Docs: https://automatedinfiniterecharge.readthedocs.io
In such uncertain times we wanted to open up our results and techniques to all of you. The sim has been a source of constant delight and learning for our teammates who otherwise might not interact with one another or be as mentally active during the pandemic. We wish similar joy for you.
