LAST CHALLANGE!!!!

We did it!!

Our robot "Buddy" successfully projected a ball, by kicking it, and then fetched it, only to kick once again! He did an amazing job! But of course his "parents" are the ones to thank.

The group did well. Once the team discovered that the project could have reached a difficult end once we discovered the robot would not be able to fetch the ball using an ultrasonic sensor. The distance in which "Buddy" through the ball was too far for him to recognize its location.

So at this point we changed our strategy to Bluetooth technology. By controlling the robot with a remote we could "coach" buddy to the ball's location. This what allowed the group to be successful.

After the task we took "buddy" apart and returned our LEGO pieces. Soon we followed by completing a team reflection.

Rest in peace, Buddy!


Below is a video of our challenge:

LEGO ROBOTICS TEAM REFLECTION

Tori Amundson   Krestina Aziz   Justin Berman   Jake Guentert   Jenny Ross

April 25, 2011

The LEGO robotics project challenged us as a group to regularly construct a workable robot that could complete the assigned tasks at hand. The actual tasks were challenging and diverse. The group typically had one week to 1) Build the Robot 2) Program the robot and 3) record and document group activity in form of a blog.

The group dynamics at times proved to be incredibly successful and other times proved to be very destructive. Our group was incredibly diverse with skills and academic levels. We struggled to define tasks early on and it led to difficulties in later weeks. Group members spent 15+ hrs on programming for a single challenge and therefore wished not to work on the programming the following week. As a group we could not recognize the difficulties within our group until the project started to fail.

As a group we failed in one task and barely completed two others. Although at the end of the four weeks the entirety of the group members felt quite accomplished the amount of effort spent my all of the group members was not equal.

Overall, the project led to mostly frustration and in the end it was difficult for us as a group to address the direct purpose of the LEGO Robotics Project. In the future, we would have appreciated more of a structure to the assignments that would allow us to better analyze the projects at hand. It would allow us to get less frustrated and better focus on the purpose.

Preparing for the last challenge!!!

Today is our second day working on the "Catapult/ultrasonic sensor" challenge. The object of the challenge is to launch (or kick, slide etc..) a ball and then find it. So far we have been experimenting with the range of which the sensor can detect the ball. The range, at least from what we've seen, is not very long. For that reason we want to program the robot in a way that it sways and moves forward until it finds the object. We are also looking at the height in which we place the sensor. Knowing that the sensor detects objects at a certain angle, we think it's better to have the sensor closer to the ground....

Before I continue, I should probably mention that our team has decided to think outside the box and not use a sensor altogether. We are going to control our robot via blue-tooth (pretty cool :)). We are going to move the robot until it reached the ball. The rules don't limit us from doing that, so.... Some of our team members feel that our newly agreed upon strategy defeats the purpose of the purpose of the challenge altogether, but our judge, Dr. Teauscher, doesn't mean to mind our creative way of figuring out the challenge. Besides, thinking outside the box and finding the holes in systems is a great skill to have :)...at the same time thought, it would have also been beneficial if we had challenged ourselves to figure out the challenge some other way. Next time...!!

Looking forward to our Competition on Monday!

Gap Following Competition 4/18/11

         Today we did our line follow challenge with gaps in the line. We were very proud of the fact that we actually got our robot to work and successfully completed the challenge. I think it was very helpful that my group all met up together outside of class for this challenge and worked well together on figuring out how to get the program to work. We are really starting to work well as a group and get things done efficiently.

         We are now starting the catapult challenge and are pretty excited because we came up with a unique way to kick the ball instead of throwing it. We are hoping that we can do very well on this last challenge and make up for the problems that we have had with two of the other ones.

          The hard part of this last challenge is to figure out if it will be better to throw the ball further or shorter, since we don't want it to take a really long time to find the ball. Also it has to be close enough to actually be able to use the sensor to determine where the ball is and be able to go to it and find it. We are going to test out a few different ways and see what will work best for the challenge.

Lets Go Little Buddy!

This Wednesday was a work day for our group. We have to figure out how to program our robots to follow a black line, like in last class’s experiment, except there are going to be breaks in between the lines.

The problem was how do we get our robot (Buddy) to follow a black line with white breaks in between? Last Monday we conquered following the black line by using a light sensor, the issue now is when our robot senses the white break between the lines; it does not know where to go. The robot essentially goes different directions trying to find the black line to follow, but it always steers so far off that it goes opposite direction of where the line actually is.

We first tried to reconstruct the program to make our robot power faster so that maybe, it will just drive over the white line. That ended up being a fail, because with 100 power it still detects the white area and becomes lost. We then tried to reprogram it to just coast over the white gaps and re-detect the black line so it can follow the line again. This was a little bit more complicated because you had to know: How many seconds should it coast for? How many seconds does it take for the robot to reach each gap? Where are the curves on the track compared to the gaps? This takes a lot of time to get the precise number for every area. We also faced how far should the sensor sweep across the black line to redetect after coasting.

Solution: We are going to try the coasting method. During class we tested Buddy around the black line track and recorded how many seconds it took to reach each gap. We then measured the gap and they are all 1” long so it should only coast for a second or two. Within the NXT program, there are options and areas we can include on when and where to coast, and for how long. Each of our motors are going to coast for a certain amount of seconds then swing the sensor about 8 degrees to find the black line.  

Half of us came up with a back-up plan, just in case the coasting experience is not consistent. Using a touch corrector is a little easier. With a touch corrector, when the robot reaches the white gaps we touch a button, which is connected to the robot to veer left or right when it gets off course to find the black line. The written program for the touch corrector is much more simple, because we can leave our program alone for following the black line, and just include another to veer right or left for a few seconds.

Race Track Red Square April 11

April 11, 2011

 

    

The task at hand was simple. We were assigned to create a robot that would using a light sensor, start from a red square and follow a black line that would loop back to the red square. The robot must travel around the loop twice, ultimately stopping at the red square upon completion.

The robot needed to include a light sensor and a touch sensor.

Conflicts arose in the following areas:

• Team Assignments: Because we were not able to properly identify tasks to each of the group members the weight of this weeks assignments were placed on one person whom familiarized himself with the program and others whom failed to do so. The team was operating around one individual.
• Task Completion: Following the black line was intended to be the simple part of the task. Jake, our programmer for this task created a makeshift track in his garage and successfully managed to travel around the track. The complications came when the amount of reflected light held in the black line from the track used in class was a different amount of reflected light from the black tape used in Jake's garage.

IN-CLASS TRIALS:
                  TIME    STOPPED
TRIAL  I:  FAILED      NA
TRIAL II: FAILED      NA

The vehicle was able to move. The starting mechanism, activated by a touch sensor was successful. However, the robot did not follow the black line successfully, and there for it did not stop on the red square upon completion.


NEXT TASK RESOLUTION:

In the next task the team will include more members that will familiarize themselves with the program. This will allow us to meet together and better brainstorm solutions to the problems at hand. Our next task is as follows:

TASK FOR APRIL 18, 2011:

Using the same robot design, program your robot to follow a black line with 1" gaps and complete a single loop around the track. The robot will stop at the end of the loop.

Posted by Justin M. Berman

I Walk the Line

It lives!

Tug-of-War Champions :D

 Today we all came into class excited about the Tug-of-war. We were confident in our design. We had much more success today than we did in our initial challenge (the rubber-band powered car). Our challenge was basically to pull our opponent’s robot to our side of the center line. The design approach we took, was simply to create a robot as heavy as possible so that it is extremely difficult for our opponent to pull us. At the same time, our offensive technique was to wind the rope on a plastic rod, shortening the rope and thus forcing the other robot to move closer to us. 

Our plan worked like magic :D although, some groups felt that we had an advantage over them because we used a piece of metal (a hammer head) as an additional weight on our robot.  We went through three rounds, winning each of them. Just out of curiosity and simply for the fun of it, we rechallenged our opponents, only without our metal piece this time. Guess what happened, our robot remained victorious : D

…but this is not about winning (well it could be) more than it is about team building and problem solving.  We really enjoyed working as a group on this stage. Our biggest challenge was actually the building part. The programing was a bit tedious, but once we got it was actually fairly simple.

Overall I think we did fantastic. The only thing we would do different is to pay more attention to aesthetics.

Here are a few photos of our Robot:

We put the wheels flat to increase friction.

 The one on the right is our robot.

Our opponents used Ravioli soup cans to add weight to their robot.

4/4/11

Today in class we prepared to do a Tug-Of-War game. We started by watching videos of the 2009 competition that the other FRINQ classes. We then got a few ideas on how to set up our robot to work well for the game. As you can see in the picture we decided that putting the tires sideways against the table would create the most friction, making it that much harder for the other robot to pull ours forward. Then we decided to use the motors, pulling in the opposite direction, to pull the string away from the other robot. Combine all that with the weights that we are going to put on our robot, and we have a big competitor in this game. Jake, Tina and myself had a good time getting creative in class today and figuring out how to work with the pieces that we had to get a good result. The building of the robot was definitely a lot more challenging then the programming of it. The programming was fairly easy, it only took a few steps to do. The hardest part was figuring out how to get both motors to do the same thing at the same time, using the splitting block was a lot easier once I figured out how to do that. I think that we worked really well together and that our robot has a very good chance of winning in our competition on Wednesday.

Lego Exercise 1

Team J3T2

Tori Amundson

Krestina Aziz

Justin Berman

Jake Guentert

Jenny Ross

Given a Lego NXT kit and 30 minutes, we were challenged to design and construct a rubber-band powered Lego car that would travel further under its own power than our competitors, with bonus points awarded for first vehicle "to market" and the winner determined by overall distance traveled. We struggled to familiarize ourselves with the various components and their uses in the time allotted, but were able to construct a car that did move under its own power--just not very far! Given the two follow-on attempts at revised designs and further competition, our group worked well together to try to better our designs, and although our revisions didn't actually help the car perform better (it performed worse!), we learned a lot about how it might work, and feel strongly that one more revision would have resulted in a strongly competitive design. Our first attempt and the revised designs were simple constructions consisting of two axles with wheels, connected by two frame members. We attempted to fix the rubber band at one axle and wind it around the other using a lever or hook to hold the rubber band, and we wound it by rotating the axle and wheels manually. We learned during the first trial that the rubber band caught on protruding edges of the hook, which inhibited the unwinding action and stopped the car. Our next revision attempted to solve this problem by using a different, wider hook design, and at the next trial, our rubber-band unwound as expected, but the drive wheels spun freely in place, while the free-wheeling wheels didn't spin at all. We determined that the free wheels didn't spin as they needed spacers to avoid contact with the frame, so our next revision included spacers to keep the wheels away from the frame. During the last trial, our "engine" began to unwind and power the car, but after only a couple of inches, the car stopped. We eventually concluded that the band was wound too tightly around itself, and the pressure it exerted on itself was enough to prevent it from unwinding further. A future revision would require more experimentation with the actual mechanics of the rubber band unwinding, but we did successfully demonstrate that the car could be propelled by a rubber band.