Team Seven/Journal
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===Day 1=== | ===Day 1=== | ||
| + | ==January 7== | ||
We went to lecture and discussed the game, parts, lab rules, etc. After the first lecture, we discussed our overall scoring strategy, and the robot functions that would be required to implement this strategy. Whiteboard sketches were drawn, erased, drawn, erased, etc. Parts were tallied, and it seems we'll be well within the number of sensor points allotted. We talked about an arm design we wanted to use and how it would handle trying to score in different towers and over the wall. We'll try to CAD something up tonight to finalize the configuration of components. For our software, we'll be sketching out our state machine to help us figure out what modules need to be written. | We went to lecture and discussed the game, parts, lab rules, etc. After the first lecture, we discussed our overall scoring strategy, and the robot functions that would be required to implement this strategy. Whiteboard sketches were drawn, erased, drawn, erased, etc. Parts were tallied, and it seems we'll be well within the number of sensor points allotted. We talked about an arm design we wanted to use and how it would handle trying to score in different towers and over the wall. We'll try to CAD something up tonight to finalize the configuration of components. For our software, we'll be sketching out our state machine to help us figure out what modules need to be written. | ||
| Line 13: | Line 14: | ||
===Day 2=== | ===Day 2=== | ||
| + | ==January 8== | ||
Lecture today was about robot behaviors and sensors. We found that while Hans is able to code up some pretty nice localization software, localizing himself in MIT is an issue. A clipboard with an algorithm written down to localize oneself on campus was suggested. Results of this experiment will be noted at the end of MASLab. | Lecture today was about robot behaviors and sensors. We found that while Hans is able to code up some pretty nice localization software, localizing himself in MIT is an issue. A clipboard with an algorithm written down to localize oneself on campus was suggested. Results of this experiment will be noted at the end of MASLab. | ||
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===Day 3=== | ===Day 3=== | ||
| + | ==January 9== | ||
Today's morning lecture was about vision, and afternoon lab time was about beating our heads against the computer trying to get vision to work. Victor spent 2 hours trying to recognize quadrilaterals. Hosea spent 3 hours trying to point at corners. We also realized that pentagons are strange, and sometimes, they are actually quadrilaterals in disguise. On the mechanical side of things, we found that the little laptop isn't really so little. It's actually rather large. We shall have to be clever about housing it properly. We should probably get to machining things soon. | Today's morning lecture was about vision, and afternoon lab time was about beating our heads against the computer trying to get vision to work. Victor spent 2 hours trying to recognize quadrilaterals. Hosea spent 3 hours trying to point at corners. We also realized that pentagons are strange, and sometimes, they are actually quadrilaterals in disguise. On the mechanical side of things, we found that the little laptop isn't really so little. It's actually rather large. We shall have to be clever about housing it properly. We should probably get to machining things soon. | ||
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===Day 4=== | ===Day 4=== | ||
| + | ==January 10== | ||
Lots and lots of CADing today. We more or less finalized a design, and decided to be ambitious and try to separate the balls we collected based on color so we can put only our balls in the tower, and throw only enemy balls over the scoring wall. This added two more systems to the robot- one to recognize the balls and divert enemy balls, and one to bring enemy balls from their own hopper back to the normal release point towards the end of the game. Strategically, this would help quite a bit. Hopefully, it's worth the extra effort. We might have two modes for opponents that are aggressive about scoring on the wall, and opponents who are primarily trying to score in their own tower. | Lots and lots of CADing today. We more or less finalized a design, and decided to be ambitious and try to separate the balls we collected based on color so we can put only our balls in the tower, and throw only enemy balls over the scoring wall. This added two more systems to the robot- one to recognize the balls and divert enemy balls, and one to bring enemy balls from their own hopper back to the normal release point towards the end of the game. Strategically, this would help quite a bit. Hopefully, it's worth the extra effort. We might have two modes for opponents that are aggressive about scoring on the wall, and opponents who are primarily trying to score in their own tower. | ||
===Day 5=== | ===Day 5=== | ||
| + | ==January 11== | ||
Turns out the new ball separation design needed quite a bit of work, so we spent a lot of time going through a couple different ways of doing this today, and did a whole bunch of CADing. On the software side, we're trying to simplify the code the staff provided because it seemed like that code had very wordy communications methods that would take way longer than is really necessary to actually talk to the Arduino. We tried for a long time to sweet-talk the Arduino into doing our bidding using Python. For a while, it was not swayed. Turns out at the end of the day that at least part of the issue was that Victor's COM ports were messed up, so the Arduino wasn't getting any data from the computer. By something like 2AM, we finally managed to make contact with the Arduino. We said hi, and it said "D;" back. Great success! Tomorrow will be a lot of machining. Hopefully, we'll be working much more on the actual robot soon rather than the pegbot. | Turns out the new ball separation design needed quite a bit of work, so we spent a lot of time going through a couple different ways of doing this today, and did a whole bunch of CADing. On the software side, we're trying to simplify the code the staff provided because it seemed like that code had very wordy communications methods that would take way longer than is really necessary to actually talk to the Arduino. We tried for a long time to sweet-talk the Arduino into doing our bidding using Python. For a while, it was not swayed. Turns out at the end of the day that at least part of the issue was that Victor's COM ports were messed up, so the Arduino wasn't getting any data from the computer. By something like 2AM, we finally managed to make contact with the Arduino. We said hi, and it said "D;" back. Great success! Tomorrow will be a lot of machining. Hopefully, we'll be working much more on the actual robot soon rather than the pegbot. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ===Day 6=== | ||
| + | ==January 12== | ||
| + | |||
| + | Today was a great day. We machined some things. They turned out very machine-like. Success! | ||
| + | |||
| + | ===Day 7=== | ||
| + | ==January 13== | ||
| + | |||
| + | Today we decided we're going to win. WIN I TELL YA. | ||
| + | The python code now has Arduino interfacing. Also it has an eye. ONE EYE- we named it cyclop (the eye, not the robot) | ||
Revision as of 09:28, 14 January 2013
Contents |
Day 1
January 7
We went to lecture and discussed the game, parts, lab rules, etc. After the first lecture, we discussed our overall scoring strategy, and the robot functions that would be required to implement this strategy. Whiteboard sketches were drawn, erased, drawn, erased, etc. Parts were tallied, and it seems we'll be well within the number of sensor points allotted. We talked about an arm design we wanted to use and how it would handle trying to score in different towers and over the wall. We'll try to CAD something up tonight to finalize the configuration of components. For our software, we'll be sketching out our state machine to help us figure out what modules need to be written.
Lab:
We put together the Pegbot, and coded up some basic control code for the Arduino. Then we found out there were different voltage regulators, and we had neglected to check the specs... costing us one melted voltage regulator. We couldn't figure out why the motors weren't working at all.
Post-Lab:
As it turns out, two of the pins on the Arduino Mega weren't working at all, so we switched up the pins we used, and now the robot moves! Hooray for movement! We've also set up the GitHub repo, and are now working on the second checkpoint and planning our state transitions.
Day 2
January 8
Lecture today was about robot behaviors and sensors. We found that while Hans is able to code up some pretty nice localization software, localizing himself in MIT is an issue. A clipboard with an algorithm written down to localize oneself on campus was suggested. Results of this experiment will be noted at the end of MASLab.
In lab, we tested sensors and webcam inputs, and refined our wall avoidance code a bit before getting the second checkpoint. We also finished the high level software planning, with all the state transitions and more or less listed the functions that needed to be implemented. Some parts of the robot were also drawn up in CAD.
Day 3
January 9
Today's morning lecture was about vision, and afternoon lab time was about beating our heads against the computer trying to get vision to work. Victor spent 2 hours trying to recognize quadrilaterals. Hosea spent 3 hours trying to point at corners. We also realized that pentagons are strange, and sometimes, they are actually quadrilaterals in disguise. On the mechanical side of things, we found that the little laptop isn't really so little. It's actually rather large. We shall have to be clever about housing it properly. We should probably get to machining things soon.
Along the way, we also got our first design review checkoff done by demonstrating that we can draw, use calendars, twiddle with threads, and think about playing games. We also got the encoder software working, and tested it by waving things in front if it. It should probably work when used with actual wheels. For this bit, we decided to have encoder plates with holes in them and use a photosensor instead of messing around with coupling rotary encoders to our wheels. These should work better.
And there was CADing, and coding long into the night. And there was evening, and there was morning- the third day.
Day 4
January 10
Lots and lots of CADing today. We more or less finalized a design, and decided to be ambitious and try to separate the balls we collected based on color so we can put only our balls in the tower, and throw only enemy balls over the scoring wall. This added two more systems to the robot- one to recognize the balls and divert enemy balls, and one to bring enemy balls from their own hopper back to the normal release point towards the end of the game. Strategically, this would help quite a bit. Hopefully, it's worth the extra effort. We might have two modes for opponents that are aggressive about scoring on the wall, and opponents who are primarily trying to score in their own tower.
Day 5
January 11
Turns out the new ball separation design needed quite a bit of work, so we spent a lot of time going through a couple different ways of doing this today, and did a whole bunch of CADing. On the software side, we're trying to simplify the code the staff provided because it seemed like that code had very wordy communications methods that would take way longer than is really necessary to actually talk to the Arduino. We tried for a long time to sweet-talk the Arduino into doing our bidding using Python. For a while, it was not swayed. Turns out at the end of the day that at least part of the issue was that Victor's COM ports were messed up, so the Arduino wasn't getting any data from the computer. By something like 2AM, we finally managed to make contact with the Arduino. We said hi, and it said "D;" back. Great success! Tomorrow will be a lot of machining. Hopefully, we'll be working much more on the actual robot soon rather than the pegbot.
Day 6
January 12
Today was a great day. We machined some things. They turned out very machine-like. Success!
Day 7
January 13
Today we decided we're going to win. WIN I TELL YA. The python code now has Arduino interfacing. Also it has an eye. ONE EYE- we named it cyclop (the eye, not the robot)
