User:Wikipolice/project2individual

Project Preference
''Your class was given a list of projects to choose from. Please list the three projects you want to work on, from highest to lowest.''
 * 1. Wind Turbine
 * 2. Mobile Robot Hallway Navigation
 * 3. Autonomous Power Wheel

Problem Statement
''In one or two sentences, describe the project that your group will be working on. Identify what CDIO phase (Conceive, Design, Implement, or Operate) your group will complete in this project cycle.''

Project Plan
Briefly describe your group's plan for the next 4 weeks, including major tasks that will be completed each week.

Week 1 Narrative
This week Cora and I reviewed the data collected by the previous group, reviewed and broke down the code to individual tasks, ran the previous group's programs and discussed what we wanted to do to make it faster and perform better. We met with Mr. Edelen in his classroom for a quick lesson on MatLab and Simulink and how to test all the sensors. We decided that we are going to use the initial group's code and use 2 sensors placed at an angle and modify it so that the robot does not over-compensate for the objects that it sees in its path via the sensors.

Week 2 Narrative
At the beginning of this week my group had originally had the idea of modifying the Lego robot's build to use only 2 sensors rather than 3 sensors in order to eliminate the robot from getting confused and hung up over trying to execute too many commands at once. After generating a code for the robot using only 2 sensors, Cora and I quickly realized that in order to increase the speed at which the robot will travel and to reduce the time it takes to navigate the hallway, we would have to include a third sensor on the robot.

Due to the need of having three sensors on the robot for the quickest possible time, we decided to go back and use the previous group's design that incorporated all 3 sensors. We then took the hallway measurements from the last group's CDIO report and came up with a concept that would limit the robot from traveling too close to the wall on either side by setting up equal distances on the left and right sensors. Doing this would theoretically cause the robot to travel in a zig-zag path and keep itself in the middle of the hallway.

Cora and I then began attempting to write our own code. We initially got lost and sought after the help of Professor Edelen, who stayed after class to assist us in getting the left side sensor operational. After he left, Cora and I managed to get the front and right sensors functional as well. We then went out into the hallway to test the code that we had generated and had some progress, but also much failure. When we ran the code the robot would travel straight and when it came too close to a wall it would turn too far in either direction and then get "lost" and spin in a circle until the left or right sensor found a wall again. Cora and I suspect that the culprit behind the robot getting "lost" in the hallway is due to the pillars that extend into the hallway that were not taken into account in the drawings, as well as a lack of many measurements of the hallway features.

Test 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7Sop6Xcrgg

Test 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVgCujeQirU

Week 3 Narrative
This week Cora and I spent a lot of time working on the coding and trying to troubleshoot the issues that we were having with the robot getting lost in the middle of the hallway last week. We had initially planned to use the old working code this week and play with the code a bit to try to speed the robot's time up. When we attempted to open the old code in MatLab, we kept receiving error messages because of a function called "data store memory". We were going to ask Professor Edelen on Thursday afternoon when we met to work on the robot, but due to his shortened office hours we were unable to do so, so our week didn't go quite as planned.

As to not waste the time that we had this week, Cora and I decided to take advantage of our down time and went out into the hallway with a tape measure and dimensioned the entire hallway in the CL building. We accounted for all the things that the previous groups drawings did not show such as door way entrances, benches, pillars, and other obstacles. I did not have time on Thursday to video the robot's performance with the code that we messed with during the beginning of our group meeting, but if I have time before class in the morning my goal is to test it and upload a video to Youtube for the weekly update presentation.

Week 4 Narrative
This week Cora and I managed to get the previous group's code that made it around the hallway to operate. We did several trials with the code and changed the variables and motor speeds to try and make the robot travel through the CL building as quickly as possible. One issue we encountered was the robot making too sharp of a left turn when trying to find the left wall, so we ended up trying several different motor speeds for the left motor to make it corner less sharply without running into the wall. We then decided to change the distance that the sensor in the front needed to see before it would back up, so that the robot would not end up getting caught up on any objects that were in the way. We did several runs afterwards to try to beat the time set by the other groups, but we could not seem to make it go any faster. We believe this is due to the batteries becoming less powerful from so much testing. If we get fresh batteries I think that the robot will navigate the hallway much faster than it currently is.