For the starstruck season I had 6 different autonomous programs for different positioning and strategies. I used a jumper clip to switch between the codes.
I want to know what all of you use for changing through different autonomous routines.
I have seen the following ways to change between the routines.
is there anything else.
And which one is the best in your opinion and easiest to use and causes less errors?
If you want to go most accurate, most expandable, do LCD. However, syncing up a pot with LEDs can be incredibly useful as well.
Which LEDs?
Excuse me. You can use LED strips as Non-Functional Decoration, and at the beginning of the match, you change the color of the LED based on what autonomous would be run when the Match begins. This is not something I’ve personally done, but it’s been mentioned multiple times here on the forum
You could but I recently created a new forum about putting LEDs and painting the robot. I wanted to ask you that which LEDs can directly connect to the cortex. Have you tried any before?
Potentiometer, then later an LCD.
Errors really depend on having a mental checklist before the start of the round.
A labeled potentiometer will have the same failure rate as an LCD, but the LCD can be easier for the non-normal drive team members to use.
Don’t use jumpers.
Sure. You could use a bumper/limit switch (with an LED strip as some have mentioned), for instance. I wouldn’t recommend it, but it works. I teach my beginners with VEX IQ, and we use the Touch LED to tap through options, changing the color to indicate which one you’re currently on. I’m not saying it’s better than a potentiometer or LCD screen, just that it is something else that works.
However, I’m really unsure about the legality of using an LED strip as some have mentioned. Using an LED strip on its own certainly seems to fit into the non-functional decoration rule. However, if you start to use it as an indicator, it becomes functional. The rule says the inspector decides if it qualifies as nonfunctional. So using an LED strip as an indicator seems risky to me. Better off with a labeled potentiometer or and LCD screen.
Vex sells LEDs, I think these are perfectly legal for functional use as all Vex components can be functional.
^^ right, we use the Vex LEDs as autonomous indicator selection. Not the strip LEDs
https://www.vexrobotics.com/vexedr/products/accessories/electronics/276-2176.html
Yes, that would be fine. I just don’t think the strips mentioned above would be a safe way to go. (Though I see the question now posted to the official forum, so maybe we’ll have an official decision deciding that one way or another soon.)
We used two potentiometers And an LCD. The left pot chose the mode (Cube and Back Stars, Cube and Block, Knock and Block Fence Stars, Skills, Etc.) and the right pot set the side - left or right. This was nice as you didn’t have to worry about color - left was always left and right was always right… The result of your selection was then displayed on the LCD, along with gyro feedback during driver control. Additionally the screen would say whenever the gyro was re-calibrating during set up if moved more than 1/10 of a degree.
That left-right choice is a smart approach. If the VEX EDR light sensors picked up color like the VEX IQ sensors, I could see wanting red v. blue for this year, but they don’t. So a left-right choice would be a good approach again this year.
To make it easier for other teams, I took the code that worked on the left side and then multiplied every turn by -1 when on the right side… It worked very well.