Day 18: Presentation and clean up

Today, was the last day of this class. All of the teams presented their final presentation, we disassembled our robots, got the inventory list checked off, and turned in all of the signed assignment papers. At the end, Brandon did a special and interesting presentation on his new and improved firebot.
It uses a Odroid U2 for the brains, which is a 1.7 Ghz quad core processor. It has a webcam to detect the flame and the chassis is circular providing an advantage over the squarebots for navigating sharp corners quickly and effectively. Instead of encoders, Brandon used a stepper motor to count the ticks. I thought of this a couple weeks ago but was not sure how it would work, but after hearing Brandon explain it, it sounds like I was onto something. I am very interested in purchasing an Odroid for my self to experiment with my own autonomous robot using similar techniques as well.

So Long Nathan²

Day 17: Working on Final presentation

Today, we started working on making powerpoint slides for our final presentation.
I worked on making the slides for the beginning, intro, design, build, and recommendations, while my partner worked on the slides for programming, strategy, code, and conclusion. I also did the final editing of the slides by adding animations, checking the correct text format, and adding a cool looking background and text colors.

Example of first slide

Day 16: Competition

Today, the class had the final project competition. The robots had to navigate four different rooms in order to find a candle and put it out. My teams robot did not do as good I had hoped, but we learned a lot from the whole project experience. They say, you learn more from your mistakes than your successes. Everyone had fun and overall it was a good experience.

Our robot during competition

Day 15: Upgraded Fan

Today, we did more testing. I installed a better fan to put the fire out with. The fan performed well so I am happy about that. The robot can find the flame and put it out now.

Brushless motor with prop attached

Day 14: More testing

Today, we continued working on our robot by trying to find the right encoder count to make a 90 degree turn. We finally concluded that the encoders not counting accurately enough to make consistent turns, so we went back to turning using delays. We were able to get the robot to search one room so far.

Day 13: install fan and testing

Today I installed a computer fan to be used as the flame extinguisher. Then we worked on programming the code needed to move the robot from room to room searching for the flame and then putting it out. We also received a gift of a voltage regulator to help keep the motors running consistently.

Voltage Regulator

Day 12: Ultrasonic PING Sensor

Today, I learned about the ultrasonic ping sensor. It works on the same principle that a bat uses sonar to detect objects. It sends out a sound that is higher than the human ear can hear and then sound bounces off a object or wall and back to the sensor.

Robot with all three sensors installed.

Robot stopping when detecting wall in front of it

Day 11: Line sensor and fire sensor

Today, I had to solder wires together for the line sensor. Next I installed a line sensor and fire sensor on the robot. I then begin to test each sensor to make sure they worked. After that, we programmed the robot to stop on a black line and detect the radiation from a candle and move towards it.

Soldering the wires for line sensor

Testing the Line Sensor

Fire Sensor and Line sensor installed

Robot performing line and flame sense test

Day 10: Encoders

Today, I learned about using an encoder to make the robot go a certain distance. The encoder works by counting how many of its gears go by. I had to calculate the circumference of the wheels and use a simple formula in order to know how many ticks the encoder would have to go for 12 feet and to make a left and right 90 degree turn. Last we had to program the robot to go through the maze we had it go through on day 9 but with using the encoders. Doing this was much easier and more accurate than the previous method of running the motor for a certain period to go a specified distance. Unfortunately it took us the whole class period to program and run the robot with the encoder so only one team was able to negotiate the maze.

Robot with the encoders attached

Navigating with encoders on

Day 9: vexduino and maze

Today, I soldered the components together for a Vexduino board. This allows me to control vex motors, etc with Arduino. I found out who I would be working with for the final project. We worked on programming our robot to navigate a basic maze shape. We had to make the motor run for a certain time in order to get it to go the distance we wanted. This task was tedious because we had to keep experimenting with the time in order to get as close as possible.

Vexduino board

robot with vexduino attached

maze for robot to navigate

Day 8: servo control and sound

Today, I learned how to make a potentiometer rotate a servo to a certain degree based off of the position of the potentiometer. Next I learned how to make arduino produce different tones and noises through a piezo sounder.

Controlling a servo by the position of a potentiometer

Working on lighting a LED to the tempo of a tune Arduino is playing

Day 7: Bi-polar motor

Today, I finally got the bi-polar circuit to work using Arduino. It works by driving the motor in one direction then reverses the polarity using a relay and drives the motor in the other direction. After I got done with that, I worked on my toy project.

Bi-Polar motor circuit

Day 6: Darlington and driving motors

Today, we learned how to use the 2N3904 transistor and 1N4001 transistor to light a Christmas light, next we made a Darlington circuit to drive the motor of our toys. We learned about the TIP120 transistor and that it has a Darlington circuit built inside of it.

Using the 2N3904 transistor to drive the light.

Darlington circuit to drive light and put a higher resistor to dim light.

Driving the light with a TIP120 transistor.

Day 5: Continuation of arduino and beginning of hacking toy.

Today, I was able to finish a couple circuits dealing with Arduino acting as a switch to turn a led on and off and using a light dependent resistor to control the behavior of two leds using "if then" commands. Last, I was finally able to start hacking a mechatronic toy to be controlled by Arduino and do things it was not purposed to do.

Learning the program code of arduino to act as a digital switch.

using a photoresistor to turn on or off an led based off of amount of light

Only the yellow led is on at medium light

Only the red led is on at low light

Both leds are off at no light levels

In the process of hacking toy

Day 4:Squarebot, transistors, and arduino

Today, I finished building my square bot, learned about the basics of transistors and arduino.

Square Bot

LED turned on and off by pressing toggle switch

Using fingers to complete the circuit and light the led

Circuit to mimic the car lights in night rider.

Day 3:Switches and Relays

Today we learned about switches and relays and continued working on our square bots.

LED controlled my two switches

Switching on and off two LED's using a relay and toggle switch.

Added a electrolytic capacitor to the circuit and now the red light flickers on and off very fast.

The progress so far completed on my square bot.

Day 1: Learning to solder and light a LED.

Today, we practiced soldering some electronic components onto an old board. I learned the importance of using flux before soldering because it helps the soldering iron to conduct heat and it cleans the copper. We soldered some wires together. Then we modified a phone charger to be used to power a breadboard.

Practice Board

Three wires soldered together and then heated shrink tubing on.

Modified power supply

Circuit to power a LED

Day 2: Learning the DMM.

Today, we learned how to use a multimeter to test for continuity, voltage, and resistance. We learned about two different kinds of power supplies AC and DC, regulated and unregulated. We then built a couple different circuits to see how different resistance changes the brightness of a LED. Last, we inventoried our vex kits.

AC and DC power supplies(top left), DMM(top right), circuit board used to test continuity on(bottom left).

Picture of the photoresistor I used to test the resistance of.

Circuits used to see how resistance affects the brightness, experimenting with a potentiometer, circuit on top is using 220 ohm resistor which was close to 250 ohms, to try and get around 20 mA going through the LED.