I don’t think that’s entirely true.
especially when contrasted with change up, I think robot design and programming ability is more important this year than perhaps ever.
sure, the auton win point might be something everyone can achieve, but I think that’s the point. If you can encourage teams to write 2 lines of code where they would previously have written none, it becomes easier for them to write better and more complex programs later in the season instead of just ignoring auton.
I guess I just look at the opposite. I saw a bunch of teams really spending a lot more time than ever before writing and perfecting their autons last year because the WP was so important and wasn’t a gimme. I fear that will be lost this year and if you just focus on building a fast robot, you will be able to just outdrive everyone over the 1:45 again.
good teams that are willing to put in that kind of effort don’t need a win point as an incentive. I think the reward of winning the auton period and gaining a huge strategic advantage going into driver is reward enough to motivate teams to write a more complicated route.
Time will tell. I’m always up for something new - just disappointed that I really liked the way that the AWP worked last year (very similar to how it has worked in FRC for years).
And, again, the other concern that I have is that I fear that it will be very noteworthy when teams don’t get the AWP as I think it will be achieved at a much higher rate than last year.
So, last year, after auton when someone did get it, it was worth noting to the audience and everyone (a mini-celebration and ooh and ahhs). This yeah it will be the opposite. The AWP will be the norm and we will be calling out those teams that failed. Not sure that I like that.
You can earn up to 6 WP per match in a Tipping Point LRT (but only one is earned during auton specifically):
Then it shouldn’t be too hard to work with other teams at an event to help them write these super simple autonomous routines. In fact, alliances being penalized for not getting the AWP gives teams like yours an extra incentive to work with these teams and show them how to write two lines of autonomous code.
Instead of focusing on what percentage of alliances will get the AWP, maybe we should be focusing on what percentage of robots move in autonomous?
If putting one ring down low and clearing the AWP Line is the bare minimum, then there is already an incentive to score a ring on a branch and clear the AWP Line. It’s called the Autonomous Bonus, which is awarded to the alliance with the most points at the end of autonomous. The Autonomous Bonus is also the second sort in the rankings, behind WPs.
*cough cough
3/4ths of the teams in our comps
I don’t want to sound like I’m unnecessarily trying to argue with you…
but teams will just hit ctrl+c and ctrl+v and bam a good auton.
If we see top teams not attempting for the AWP, what are the realistic chances we see the top teams at a lower seeding, leading to more potential upsets during the tourney? Or would the AWP really only effect the ranking of the bottom half of the leaderboard, with the top teams still holding the top?
As I stated, I guess we are just in a region that this doesn’t happen in. By our Halloween event, it is rare (it doesn’t happen though) that even MS teams don’t have auton. By our Holiday event, all teams do.
I understand though that it is one set of rules for all regions and that is the hard part. Hard for me to comprehend that many teams don’t do auton. That’s why we have discussions like this. 
A good point. But it is even easier than that … why waste time with Crtl-C/Ctrl-V when I can open up blockly and write code for them to work in even less time? Everyone will have auton and a robot that moves - so it will look better to spectators definitely - but will they learn anything about coding?
As others have mentioned, there are definitely regions where no-move autons are relatively common. Maybe getting an auton via copy-pasta doesn’t directly teach them anything about coding, but at least opens their minds to “Hey, this is a thing, and it’s not nearly as intimidating as I thought it might be” and gets them on the path. At least that’s how I see it when I wear my rosy glasses…
Even a copy-paste autonomous requires they have SOMETHING in the ‘Autonomous’ section of their code. Once a team crosses that hurdle, students are far more likely to try something to make it just a little bit better…
This is a great question.
In CU (both in person and in LRT) we saw a distinct shift in strategy during autonomous between quals and elims. During quals, teams focused on getting their home row to get the AWP. During elims, you started seeing more teams focus on goals outside of the home row.
It’s definitely an interesting decision tree during quals. Do you forgo the AWP and try to get neutral goals, which boost your chances of getting 2WPs for winning? However, that means you’re going to get a max of 2 WPs/match, which means you’ll be ranked behind teams that opted for the AWP and were still able to win matches. If you forgo the AWP to grab neutral goals and lose the match, then you get 0 WPs which hurts more than going for the AWP and losing the match.
Personally, I think we’ll see maybe one or two teams that have a robot that can do the bare minimum in order to secure the AWP that will end up arguably in a higher position than they should, however that’s prone to happen regardless of whether the AWP is a thing or not, that’s the nature of the random partner system.
I don’t think it’ll matter too much to the top teams, because anyone with 2 functioning eyeballs are going to more than likely go based off how they see teams perform and less 3 numbers that just dictate the picking order. I do think it would be interesting to consider adding a second AWP that’s much more difficult, maybe including the platform, to add even more to the variability to the autonomous period, to and give top teams another opportunity to differentiate themselves from the backmarkers.
If you want more WPs, play the LRT version of TiP 
You seem to have forgotten and/or disregarded the entirety of my post. Your video shows a robot completing half of the autonomous WP, and we can fairly assume it was finished by the alliance partner. But, what if it wasn’t completed? My post outlined a partner with no automous, how do you pick up their weight? My post outlined grabbing neutral goals too, scoring more than 1 point to also get the bonus for the match, which your video does not example.
We have clearly demonstrated that we are talking about completing other tasks too, but while you sit with your 2 lines of code saying it’s easy, the opponents have already claimed the neutral goals and stolen two more win points from you. We are trying to say you need to do other things to still be effective.
Since you keep talking about how easy the AWP is, isn’t this a perfectly reasonable trade off?
Absolutely. I don’t think we’ll see a lot of teams with 24WP in an 8 Q match tournament, with the upper limit likely being around 19 or 20 WP, since I do think more top teams are going to try and secure the 2 WP then merely guaranteeing one and potentially losing the other 2. I don’t really think it’ll matter either, going back to the using 2 functional eyeballs to see who’s doing what.
I think the AWP being this simple is a good thing, as it allows teams who would usually not do auton to come up with something simple that is rewarding without having to outpace the higher-tier teams for the standard autonomous bonus.
Is it a regular WP or auton point(AP) for completing the challenge?