User:Jaysongreen/ENES-100/Project mazie the kitty cat

Week 1 Narrative
For the first week of the new project I started by updating myself with the CDIO pages of the students that worked on the projects prior to me. I went through each step and advancement that they made in the project. I noted the steps in my notebook. One of the major obstacles that the previous team encountered was programming the robot. I am also enrolled in the engineering programming class at the school so it wasn't hard to understand the robot program. The code is written in C language and uses basic logic functions. The program gave an input for both whiskers, and when the whiskers made contact with the three pin header it would complete the circuit and input TRUE to the servo motors. When the left AND right whiskers both input TRUE or 1, then the robot will back up for .5 seconds and turn left 60 degrees. (The possibility of both whiskers inputting TRUE doesn't happen very often throughout the course of the maze) When only the left whisker inputs TRUE then the robot backs up for .5 seconds and turns right 35 degrees. When only the right whisker inputs TRUE then the robot backs up for .5 seconds and turns left 35 degrees. Another problem that the team encountered was that the robot would take contact from the track, but it wouldn't bend the whiskers at the right angle to touch the three pin headers. So the robot would sometimes climb the walls of the maze without making any turns. Beruk and I started working on the maze after I learned the program and different problems that the team encountered. The maze was almost half way complete when I started in the first week. We added two new additions or sections to the track in the fist week. Here is one example of a one of the turns in the track. We cut the box at the angle we wanted the track to turn. This box was cut at a 45 degree angle to start turning the track back in the direction of the starting point.

Week 2 Narrative
I did research on possible using Infra Red sensors instead of the three pin headers and whiskers. IR sensors are readily used today for example in a TV remote (http://www.cablewholesale.com/support/technical_articles/infrared.php). Mazie would use two sensors at the top end of the robot turned at about 45 degree angle to try and pick up the most reception. Test will be done to find the maximum angles and distances to find the most reception from the IR LEDs to the IR receiver. The IR lEDs are inside a tube that directs the IR light forward, like a flashlight. The receiver sends the Arduino high/low signals to tell whether it detects the infrared LED’s light reflected off the track walls. I asked the client, Mr. Plotnick, for the IR kits to get started with reading and testing. Hassan, the previous robot programmer, told me about one of the programs online that i could use for mazie.

Week 3 Narrative
For the third week of the project, we wanted to complete and assemble the entire track, and we wanted to solve the whisker problem before starting on the IR sensors. We realized that half of our track pieces were missing, so we had to redo 6 of the 8 track pieces. After creating the new track additions we assembled everything together, preparing for a test run with mazie. We connected the track by punching holes at the top and bottom corners and using the make-do parts to hold the pieces together. For some of the connections we used binder clips to hold the track pieces together. The make-do parts didn't always work because there was too much space in between the track holes. If the holes were too far apart then the make-do part couldn't snap together. So on some of the track pieces we used binder clips to hold the track together. After fully assembling the track we ran mazie through the track. We ran into a couple of problems after running mazie. One of the problems was that the whiskers were getting stuck in the small opening where the track would turn. The main problems with the test run was that mazie was climbing the walls of the track.

Week 4 Narrative
For week 4 we attacked the problems that we encountered in the previous week starting with the main problem of wall climbing. We noticed that at certain angles of impact, the whiskers would not make contact with the 3 pin headers, causing Mazie to climb the track walls. If the angle of contact is 45 degrees or less then, the whiskers make perfect contact with the 3 pin header and Mazie avoids the walls. But when the angle measure is to steep or greater than 45 degrees than mazie climbs walls and no contact is made with three pin header. My solution to this problem was to use 2 copper wires and connect them to 3 pin headers. When the whiskers move away from the 3 pin header (Steep angles of contact push the whiskers away from header) contact would still be made, and the same signal would be sent from the arduino to back up and turn in the opposite direction away from the walls.

Week 5 Narrative


For week 5 I worked on the whisker solution. (In the picture i labeled the positions positive and negative but that has nothing to do with charge) I had the idea of braiding the wire to make it sturdy so that when contact was made with the solution, that it wouldn't change its geometry. I pulled out 5 scrap wires from the back room and stripped the plastic cover from off of them. I straightened all of the wire strips out and firmly gripped one end with pliers. The other end of the wires I twisted clockwise to get braided effect. I showed the solution to Mr. Plotnick and he advised me to keep it simple and just use one wire. So i took his advice and used one wire. To keep the wire sturdy i wrapped it through the 3 pin headers and clamped it tight with pliers. Here is a video of mazie running with the whisker solution. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6zLTypAuhY