Bulldozer Robot Challenge

Code:(Robot.c)

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A Presentation by:

Ryan, Karen, Sal, and Will

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Issues We Ran Into

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Uneven Motor Start

Error Codes

Pseudocode

Uneven Motor Start

Error Codes

In the beginning we programed our motors to be equal, as seen below...

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• Pause for one second
• Drive forward 40 cm
• Turn right 90°
• Drive forward 100 cm
• Turn left 90°
• Drive forward 60 cm
• Turn left 90°
• Drive forward 85 cm
• Drive backwards 15 cm
• Turn right 90°
• Drive froward 50 cm
• Turn left 90°
• Drive forward 30 cm
• Pause for 3 seconds
• Donughts

Throughout the project we ran into several error messages. These did not seem to have any reason and came sporadically. After shutting down the program and restarting most messages would disappear.

Due to varying motor strengths and a lack of consistency in performance we had to edit motor values to get them to go straight. This was successful on all Legs except Leg 1.

-First two runs had bad starts which caused the robot to be off course

- On the third run, the robot was able to place the can in the circle therefore we were happy with the results

- Expecting the can to land on the x

- More secure claw to make it go faster

Whiplash

We noticed that before and after the robot made a turn or went forward the rapid change in motion would set it off course. We combated this by inserting .5 second breaks (code seen below) before any change in direction, this would give the wheels time to settle and make a perfect turn

Valuable Takeaways

- Start working on the presentation earlier than a couple of days ahead

- Focus more on simply building robot before making it more complicated looking

- Devote most of the time to coding but not too little time on planning

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Design and Test

Final Plan

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• To begin we measured the path we wanted to take
• We then found the circumference of our wheels and transferred meters into rotations in degrees.
• After several attempts and recalculations, we finally perfected the first journey, "Leg 1", at 50% power.
• We the moved on to perfecting our turns
• We realized after a full period of fiddling with rotation amounts that the turns needed to be perfect to get consistent results.
• We ran into several problems along the way that puzzled all of us.

• Ended up using simple “arms” to handle the can
• Wanted to focus on programming the robot to run its course rather than focusing on the complexity of the “arms”
• The original big wheels were better of than the small wheels and treads (went back to original wheel structure)
• Rough draft of coding with time based programming
• There was inconsistency in the coding and also difficulty in estimating
• Switched over to degree based coding found it was much easier to estimate distances rather than time based coding

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Day 1: Imagine

Rapid Prototyping

The Challenge

& Our Response

Mini Wheels

The Tank

Brief Description:

We attempted to make a robot with extreme maneuverability using tank-like treads.

After the failed attempt with the tank we still didn't like the original wheels so we used the smaller ones.

Why It Failed:

• smaller wheels skidded on turns
• fixed axles spread wide made it nearly

impossible to turn

• was not able to gain any traction on the wood floors
• jammed while making turns
• tape was unable to provide traction

• Move the can from point A to point B as efficiently as possible.
• Adding pieces to make it look better and make it faster.
• Considered having arms that bend on the robot, hard to find the right position to put them in.
• Tank was considered. Instead of wheels, caterpillar tracks would quicken the speed.
• Switch the big rubber tires for the smallest size wheels.

The Claws

The Closing Gate

Brief Description:

The closing gate was another sophisticated can securing idea. It would use the third motor and gears to raise and lower a gate on the can.

Brief Description:

Why it failed:

• We decided it was a waste of our time
• never tested the idea

The robot would have moving claws out front that would grab the can through the use of the third motor.

Why it failed:

• decided it was a waste of our time

Bulldozer Robot Challenge

Based on Jim Harvey's speech structures