I know this has been discussed multiple times here in the past. However once again I feel that I have some updated thoughts on the topic.
For those who are not familiar, The “A Stop” button would be (if implemented) a button similar to the “E Stop” button provided in the drivers stations, that when pressed only disables the robot for the remainder of the autonomous period.
Would you like to see this implemented? If so how? And with what penalties for use?
Would you like an “A Stop” button implemented?
Yes, And allow teams to use it without penalty.
Yes, However there is a penalty for use
No
0voters
Personally I feel that this would allow teams to experiment more with autonomous at events. However there must be rules in place that discourage teams from using it to stop movement after achieving mobility points.
This is just my $0.02 I’d like to hear thoughts from others.
I’m of the belief that a a safety feature should never have a penalty that would make a team hesitate to use it. I don’t really care if a team decides they want to stop their basic auto using a button instead of slightly modifying their autonomous program so it stops on its own.
As it stands, I also believe being forced to e-stop your robot for the whole match because of a haywire auto is also an unnecessarily harsh punishment for using a safety feature of the field, but maybe I’m taking it too far.
Ironically enough we had this exact feature in 2019 since in sandstorm you could touch controls. We ran sandstorm fully auto, if auto went wrong hit the button, robot stops. Curtain comes up proceed to play as if nothing happened
They could put a beam break sensor on the line, and if any driver crossed it, that station’s robot would stop. No penalty other than the logical. Also, if people felt penalties were necessary, utilizing it could remove all the points for that robot earned in auto (like climb penalties do this year). That still seems fair to me.
I answered “no,” but only because I think the drivers should be able to disable at any time in a match without consequence. The whole “drivers behind the lines” thing is silly.
I believe it’s just for ease of rule enforcement. While Joystick values are frozen in auto, NT still provides a theoretical method of input if a team wanted to try to be slick. Events generally don’t have enough refs to make sure each team is just reaching for the disable and not the DS.
I also don’t understand why we’re locked out of the regular disable button during a match, however.
Going for the E-stop is NOT penalized–it’s a safety thing. At least it shouldn’t be penalized…
Drivers behind the lines is actually not silly… if you were around in 2003 when automode was introduced. That year, the GDC was pretty much going to let teams do whatever (as stuff wasn’t going to be sent/listened to by the control system), but teams started discussing “ways to send commands without using the joysticks” and similar things. GDC said “no”, teams kept going. So the GDC put the line in so it would be really obvious that drivers were not touching their controllers. I suspect it’s stayed in for precisely similar reasons: “teams will try to figure out how to send stuff” fears.
As far as regular disables/E-stops: no idea why that’s locked out–but I suspect that the regular disable is locked because it’s a package with the enable. And the VERY LAST thing you want on an FRC field is a robot moving when it’s supposed to be disabled, because someone hit the enable by mistake (or intention but I give the benefit of the doubt). I could be wrong on them being a package deal, though.
How would the Referees handle a “strategic A-stop”? How would they know it was strategic?
In FLL, the robot’s actions during the whole 2 1/2 minute match is supposed tobe autonomous when it is outside of the Launch Area/Home. Any interruption of the robot action by the team members leads to a penalty being assessed against the team **. There has been a rule for as long as I can recall against “strategic interruptions” where the team member interrupts the robot action at just the right time to achieve a scoring action, presumably worth more than the penalty for the interruption.
** the 2021/2022 season is the first year where the penalty for the first interruption is zero.
It’s penalized in the sense that once you use it, your match is over. If you use it during auto to stop a rogue autonomous, you no longer have a chance to compete in teleop.
I don’t think this is a good idea in every scenario, especially since there are specific strategies, (at least in this years game) where crossing the line can net you an extra ball, given that it has been knocked off of it’s staged position.
I like the idea of an A-Stop button. Perhaps it should be part of the field though. Like on each station there is a physical a-stop button that does not need to be connected to the laptop. Something they can hit without interacting with their other controls so there will be no doubt the step is taken for the purposes of an A-Stop. Should also be on the DS software for practice purposes.
I understand the concern about strategic use but I think the strategic use abuse factor weighs in way less than preventing bot or field damage as well as making some teams feel more comfortably with trying more in auto.