Holte-Schwartz Robot 09-10
This is a notebook documenting the processes JH and JS have gone through in building their robot for the RoboFest 2010. They have been working since October 2009.
This week we’ve finished the first step towards success which was getting the robot to stay on the table. It was very complicated. There were a number of problems with the robot – the main issue was how to get the sensors to sit level or aim straight down.The problem with this is that the ultrasonic waves it sends out will bounce everywhere and will give it a crazy distance reading which will cause it to act weird, for example, it will instantly back up and turn to the left and keep repeating that. Joe and I have come a long way on our robot since Joe came up with the idea of using the ultrasonic instead of light or touch sensors to sense the edge of the table. We also just learned the dimension restrictions. The robot can only be 25 cm long (ours was 29 cm long). To shorten our robot we had to move the central computer and back tire. Next we plan on working with the light sensor to stop the robot from pushing the human bottle (a certain bottle with tin foil on it) off the table. e hope it is less of a challenge than the ultrsonic sensors were to control. -JH 2/5/10
Last week JS and I reconstructed our robot to become more stable. In the front we now have a plow with ultrasonic sensors behind it. We are still working on getting them to work properly so that the robot doesn’t fall off the edge of the (testing) table. Next we will work on how to use the “light” sensors. -JH 2/4/10
Robotics is a great experience. It is also a great place to learn and have fun. This year we are working on a competition using Lego’s. We have a variety of instruments to use and can have up to three motors and four sensors. For sensors we have ultrasonic (sensor sending ultrasonic waves and using the “echo’” to locate near objects, touch (which is a button that is easily pushed), light (which determines how dark or light as object is) and sound sensors (which can make the robot do something depending on the sound level). The motor is like an arm reaching for a doorknob. It has the motor where the “shoulder” would be and where the hand would be is the part that rotates forward and reverse. The base where you start from is the “computer” or what controls the motors and reacts with the sensors depending on how you programmed it. The programming is done on the computer and is transferred to the robot through the USB cable. Joe Schwartz and I have started ours using the ultrasonic sensor on the front of our robot facing down so that when its about to go ff of the edge of the playing field it stops, then backs up and turns before going again. We hope to do well in the competition. – JH 1/27/10