User:Mongrest/Project3

Project Preference

 * 1) autonomous power wheel

Week 1 Narrative
My Goal for this week was to look at the code and logic that the previous group had created and see if there was any way that i could think of to improve how fast the mobile robot goes around the hall.

Upon looking at the code I realized that i actually knew what the code did by looking at it because it was simple code that i learned in high school in Comp Sci. So since the code made sense and the logic was pretty straight forward, i moved on to brain storming ideas on making the robot take less time to go around the hall. My though was that the robot would probable be able to take at least a minute or two if it drove straight with the wall instead of in a parabolic motion. At first i was thinking to have the robot stay a constant distance away from the wall like at around 100cm and then have a minimum distance that if something got within the minimum distance the robot would have yo turn a bit to the right to avoid it. the only problem with this is that the motors for the wheels don't spin the same when put at the same speed and the robot will not go straight. i still need to figure out way to make it go straight. I had another idea on how to make it go kind of straight/less parabolic. I thought the best way to do this was to make the robot turn less to the left than it currently did and when it gets too close to a wall it would turn more to the right (away from the wall) and the turn back left a little to straighten itself out. this was really the trial and error part of the code to see what times and speeds work the best. It kind of worked because the robot got down the hall faster. the reason i say "kind of worked" is because there was an open door in the hall and when it got o the door it avoided it but the robot went too far to the right and was not able to completely straighten out and it hit the other wall. In my opinion the solution to this problem would be to put another sensor facing the right side of the robot and code it to act like the left facing sensor.

Week 2 Narrative
My goal this wee was to try to write up a code for the equation code to try to get the code to work and not make the robot continuously spin in circles after going too far away from the wall. However this could only be done in class and not at home due to lack of ability to test codes. The second task was to create a test for comparing the the programs on the robot to see which is the most efficient at navigation The 2 tests i could think of at the time were first how far the robot would go before crashing into the wall or an object. This was a good parameter of the test because it would test the code's reliability. The second part was to see how long the robot took to reach the end of the first hallway; this was to test the program's speed. though sitting here typing up this update i thought of another test. the third test could be to have someone stand in front of the robot and to see how long it takes to avoid the obstetrical and the realign itself on course near the wall going the right way. this test is a combination of speed and reliability.

Week 3 Narrative
So my goal for this week was to come up with more variables to test for each of the programs for the navigation. In all honesty there aren't too many other variables that I could think of except for time the robot takes to restraighten its path after seeing a wall.