Team Twelve/Journal
Contents |
Day 1: Mon. January 7
Preliminaries
First we divided tasks, so everyone is an expert in one area.
- Melody is figuring out how Arduino works.
- Roxana will figure out how all the electrical parts work.
- David will figure out how to implement computer vision (understand OpenCV).
- Holden will figure out finite state machines and navigation.
The roles may change as we progress. Other categories include understanding EE vs. MechE stuff
Our tentative meeting schedule is simply every day after lecture.
Building a robot
Laying out all the gadgetry on the table, we felt like we had just landed in the middle of a foreign country without knowledge of the language. We had no idea how to build anything at first, asked a lot of stupid questions (multiple times), and did a bunch of stupid things (screwing up screwing things in, connecting wires wrong, blowing up the battery, etc.). Roxana and Holden put the wheels, etc. together; David worked on setting up the laptop; Melody worked on programming in Arduino; Melody and Roxana studied and implemented the circuits; and then we all huddled around our robot making last-minute fixes. At around 7:40 THE ROBOT MOVED! Just one wheel because the other hadn't been programmed, but still. We were psyched. Team 12 was the eight (not twelfth) to complete Checkpoint 1.
Day 2: Tue. January 8
Planning
From 11 to 12:30 we brainstormed ideas of our robot. Our tentative strategy is to
- hold onto balls until ~2:30
- deposit balls into pyramid
We debated whether to use an arm or ramp to pick up balls. For tomorrow,
- Melody will write a schedule for IAP
- Roxana will sketch a design
- David wrote out a strategy
- Holden will plan the software architecture.
Checkpoint 2
In the afternoon we worked on programming the pegbot to turn at a wall. Roxana and Melody soldered the wires and connected the IR sensor. David learned OpenCV (for Thursday's checkpoint). Holden programmed a simple finite state machine to avoid walls. However, the program still had bugs in it when lab closed at 8pm.
Evening work
We met in MacGregor C-entry to make plans for the robot. We studied past years' designs. We decided that from now on
- Holden and David will program the robot. They started by drawing a state diagram.
- Melody and Roxana will build the robot. They sketched possible designs.
Day 3: Wed. January 9
Checkpoint 2
Holden debugged the code (the problem was calling arduino.run() before setting the connections). We went to the field to test. First one wheel fell off. Then we tested again and the other wheel fell off. Roxana fixed the wheels and at 3:10 we passed Checkpoint 2 (the 11th team to do so)!
Our robot now implements the following simple behavior:
- It turns (left) when it gets close to a wall.
- When it gets too close it backs up.
Plans, moving forward
After the checkpoint,
- Roxana and Melody made robot drawings,
- David used OpenCV to pick out a red ball from the camera image, and
- Holden I modularized the code, and added the states responsible for looking for/approaching the ball.
Yesterday we came up with a "conveyor belt" design, but realized that we had misunderstood how the "Archimedes screw" (last year's winning design) worked. After we understood it, we decided that we would implement the Archimeded screw because it is a mechanically simpler way to lift balls.
We presented our plans and got some useful advice (for the builders, make sure the robot doesn't tip over; for the programmers, plan out the threads).
Moving on...
Roxana and Melody will work on a prototype for the robot. In the evening they went to Edgarton to cut two wheels out of pegboard, to make a rubber band roller.
