Thursday, November 6, 2008

Obstacle Course Challenge


Your team will need to design and build a robot that uses all 4 sensors. You will then need to program your robot to maneuver through the obstacle course in the quickest time.-Mr. Inskeep


The challenge is basically about whether all the functions that we've learnt can be applied. The steps of the challenge are following :

1. begin with reaction to a clap
2. stay in the bow for 5sec

3. run into the marked box on the wall in front and turn right using a touch sensor

4. turn right with an ultrasonic sensor

5. avoid a stack of cans and halt after the final line


I've not thought about it deeply but the first, third and forth steps are considered to be easy to be done. The second step can be done with a light sensor attached at the back of a robot so that when the light sensor reads the white line it stops in the box.
However, it is difficult to plan how to get to the final line without bumping into the cans since they will be placed randomly. If they are stable enough to endure the impact of a robot running into them, the touch sensor might be able to be used but the thing is they are not. Therefore, the ultrasonic sensor or projectiles are only ways in my thought. My solution for that is to detect the objects with an ultrasonic sensor right in front of them and to go around them. The direction has to be changed according to the position of the cans in each cases because if they are at the right side of the track and it is programmed to go around it in the right side, there's a possibility for the robot to move out of the track.
Something that is considered to affect the difficulty of the challenge most is to make the robot run properly regardless of the effects of friction of the carpet.

1 comment:

c.cuthbert said...

I think you have some good ideas about the challenge, you are very thoughtfull. I like the ideas about the cans.