Autonomous Time Estimator
Whether a route fits the 15 second autonomous period, and which step is eating the time.
Inputs
List the route in order. Type drive and give inches,turn and give degrees, or action and give how many seconds it takes.
From the Drivetrain Speed calculator.
From the Acceleration calculator. Used for speeding up and slowing down.
From Track Width & Turning Geometry.
What share of the theoretical figures a real robot achieves. Lower is more pessimistic.
Results
Estimated total
—sec
Fits in 15 seconds?
—
Time left over
—sec
Spent driving
—sec
Spent turning
—sec
Spent on actions
—sec
Total distance
—in
Slowest single step
—
Step by step
| # | Step | Type | Amount | Time | Reaches top speed? | Elapsed |
|---|
How this is calculated
Autonomous routines are lost to acceleration far more often than to top speed. Most autonomous moves are short, and a short move is nearly all speeding up and slowing down.
How each drive is timed
A drive that stops at the end has three parts: accelerate, hold speed, decelerate. If the move is short enough, the middle part never happens and the robot is still accelerating when it has to start braking.
distance to reach top speed d = v² / (2a) if the move is longer than 2d: t = 2v/a + (distance − 2d) / v if it is shorter: t = 2 × √(distance / a)With your numbers
The second case is the one that surprises people. Below about 2d, time grows with the square root of distance, so halving a short move saves much less than you would expect.
The reality factor
Top speed and acceleration from the other calculators are ceilings from ideal physics. Real routines lose time to wheel slip, sensor settling, the pause between commands, and mechanisms that need a moment to finish.
Rather than pretend those are modelled, this scales the theoretical figures by a factor you control. 80% is a reasonable starting guess.Time one real run with a stopwatch and adjust it until the estimate matches, then use it to compare route changes.
Where the time usually goes
Turns are the usual surprise. They cover no ground, they scrub the wheels, and a route with six turns in it can spend a quarter of the period rotating. If the estimate is over, look at removing turns before looking at driving faster.
Sources & assumptions
The 15 second autonomous period is from the Override2026-27 game manual. Everything else comes from your own figures.
Assumes each step finishes before the next begins, with a full stop between them. Routines that blend one move into the next are faster than this, and routines that wait on sensors are slower.
Deceleration is assumed equal to acceleration, which is close enough for planning but not exactly true: braking has friction helping it.
- V5RC Override Game Manual v1.1 (2026-27) — checked 2026-08-17
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