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team 8 is gr8

Team Memberz:

Amy Liu '19

Amy was born in Newton, MA. She had been living quite a peaceful life in Acton, MA until she moved onto B1 at MIT. She is a crazy party girl.

Gina Han '19

Little Gina walked to the school bus stop every morning in the frigid Massachusetts winter with wet hair after showering in the morning. Her hair froze all the time; this made her strong.

Kaymie Shiozawa '19

Kaymie is embracing her street style from Tokyo. She also has a black belt in karate, but she has never been in a street fight because she has mysophobia.

~we reppin' B1~


Goals:

  1. Knock over blocks from stacks to gain points
  2. Potentially possess blocks

Week 1

Plan:

  • Create a design for our robot based on our goals
  • Complete Kitbot
  • Start working on software
  • Go to all the lectures

Results:

  • Was confused at all (most) of the lectures
  • Laser cut and built structure of Kitbot
  • Almost done with basic electronics, such as wiring the battery to the fuse, a switch, and the motor controller
  • Soldered the Teensy to the breakout board
  • got TAMproxy stuff working and Teensy connected and blink sketch running

Week 2

Plan:

  • Get the robot moving
  • CAD and laser cut new parts
  • Figure out sensors
  • Continue with software

Results:

  • Motors work/EE
  • Our main computer with all the dependencies on it had display issues, so we had to redo everything a total of three times until the main computer was fixed by Apple Support (thanks Apple)
  • Teensy #1 broke :(((((
  • Made Teensy #2
  • Started CADing with Solidworks

Week 3

Plan:

  • Finish CAD/lasercut
  • Figure out sensors
  • Power Teensy through external power

Results:

  • Finished CAD/lasercut (new HUGE base so blocks can fall on it, taller support stands so blocks won't get caught on it when they fall, and tabs for the edges to keep the blocks on the base)
  • Decided to use ultra short IR sensors and hooked it up
  • Started to learn Python late in the week eek :o
  • Started to try to make the Winbook work with many struggles (it kept turning on and off)

Week 4

Plan:

  • Finish the thing

Results:

  • Started/finished software (thx Mitchell) - did a simple state machine and later (after seeding rounds) added more randomization to the turns
  • Decided to use limit switches instead of ultrashort IRs, added cardboard extensions to create bumpers
  • Realized that we didn't cut the trace for Teensy #2 before soldering :((((( almost had to go for Teensy #3 but decided to cut the red wire of micro-USB cable.
  • Then realized that our DC-DC converter was shorting our circuit so then decided to power Teensy #2 through Winbook
  • Never got the Winbook to work though...so powered it through computer for the competition
  • Calibrated the robot
  • Decorated and christened our bot Wall-B!

DONEZZZZ

Name: Wall-B (B stands for bounce - cuz he bounces off walls)

Gender: Male

Age: A few days old

Birthplace: IDC

Life dream: To be a roomba

Wall-B is Wall-E's baby brother. Wall-B loves his brother, but he loves his mothers, Gina, Amy, and Kaymie more (see picture below).

P.S.

Dear MASLAB Staff,

Thank you so much for the past month. In the beginning of IAP we were really scared and lost, but this class has been such a great experience. We learned a lot, and we had so much fun. Thank you for bearing with us and helping us with anything and everything.

Team 8 :)

P.P.S.

Also, thank you to all the teams for being such great role models; all your robots are awesome!

Results/Advice for Next Year

  • Placed 2nd Place! (Lol wut)
  • We met our initial goals, and it worked well; there were no major issues with our robot during the competition
  • Keeping our robot simple was key
  • Don't lose faith even if you're noobs because we were as noobs as noobs get...
  • DO MASLAB; we learned so much, and we had a great experience!
  • Github repo

With the awesome TAs (missing Tej ;( )