Team Nine/Journal
From Maslab 2007
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| Team Nine’s Journal |
Week One
Day One 1/8/2007
Today we assembled our OrcPad and pegbot. After some difficulty and the TA's help, we figured out how to download simple programs to the Orcboard, and ran a Hello World! program and a simple drive forward program. We also held a brainstorming session to discuss our navigation program and our mechanical design for collecting balls.
Day Two 1/9/2007
Today, we got an IR sensor working and completed the checkpoint for driving forward until we get close to an obstacle. In the early evening, we split up to go to a Java course, do programming, and go to the hardware store. Later, we reconvened in our dorm to work on the ball finding program for Thursday; we made some progress (including improving Red thresholds), but still have more to do.
Day Three 1/10/2007
We completed the checkoff for getting our robot to spin, see a ball, drive to it, and stop when it arrives. We used an IR distance sensor to help see when were touching the ball, and it proved to be rather buggy. We also had errors with the camera -- slight changes in tilt completely change behavior, so we may switch to a more stable mount soon.
Day Four 1/11/2007
We talked to the TA's to complete Checkpoint One. We held a meeting to desing our software -- which will be implemented as a FSM -- and to make a list of all the intermediate functions we need to create. We also developed our mechanical design a bit further. Also, Alex waterjetted a new robot base out of acrylic.
Day Five 1/12/2007
Alex and Jenny did some machining, but our parts from McMaster got lost in shipping, so we're having to wait until Monday for replacements to arrive. Mark started working on making more precise encoders than the ones in the kit, while Jeremy worked on the vision code.
Day Six 1/13/2007
We did more machining, vision coding, and work on the encoders. The mechanical side of things is basically stalled until the new parts arrive. The encoders work, but are still a long way from being mounted.
Day Seven 1/14/2007
Most of the team took a break, since it's Sunday. We did make some progress on the encoders, though -- after a bit of precise machining and a little bit of electrical tweaking in front of a scope, they should be ready to go.
Week Two
Day Eight 1/15/2007
We finally got the encoders working. We mounted the ball grabber mechanism and its motor on the robot. On the programming side of things, we got a goal-finding algorithm working.
Day Nine 1/16/2007
Our parts finally arrived, so we put together our new robot chassis and moved everything over to it from the pegbot. We also got our gyro mounted and a good turn function working.
Day Ten 1/17/2007
We got our robot doing a basic wander function, where it rotates, looks for balls, and moves randomly if there aren't any (while avoiding walls). After the dinner, we designed our ball hopper. We also completed functions to estimate angle and distance to balls from the camera.
Day Eleven 1/18/2007
We machined our ball hopper, though it still needs some work. We brought our robot into lab, and spent the day testing. Over the course of this testing, we got our robot to successfully find and collect balls (though not always in what looks like an efficient manner). Late in the evening, the encoders stopped working, so we're trying to use the gyro to drive straight instead.
Day Twelve 1/19/2007
We got the robot driving straight off of the gyro. We went to mock competition. The robot was having some problems catching on the rug because our ramp was dragging. A new ramp was machined. We mounted the ramp and hopper with tape so we could test more effectively at the mock competition. However, the balls still had a high probability of jamming when the robot picks them up.
Day Thirteen 1/20/2007
We rewrote the wander code such that the robot spins and takes images while it spins.
Day Fourteen 1/21/2007
Watched the Pats lose miserably :(, then tested in lab to determine bugs. Fixed numerous minor bugs in our wander and grab red ball code.
Week Three
Day Fifteen 1/22/2007
Modified the mechanical design for the drum to pick up balls more reliably, but we still had a few issues with jamming. We also designed the exact mechanism for the hopper and how it dumps balls out. As far as code goes, we wrote the code to locate and drive towards a goal.
Day Sixteen 1/23/2007
We went to home depot to pick up more supplies. We modified the ball grabber such that it picked up almost every time without jamming. We built the mechanism to dump and deposit balls. The goal dumping code was also written.
Day Seventeen 1/24/2007
We did a lot of testing today. We improved all of our code (wander/red ball alignment issues/goal finding/goal dumping). By the end of the night we were successfully navigating one of the playing fields and scoring all the balls on the field. It still has numerous issues, but should be good for the mock competition tomorrow.
Day Eighteen 1/25/2007
We went to the mock competition today. We ran the robot two times. The first time it got stuck in a blind spot on our IR sensors. Alex machined and attached bump sensors to fix this problem. On our second run we successfully picked up and scored three balls in a goal. After the competition, we redid the mounting for the IR sensors/bump sensors and general cable management. We also improved our navigation code.
