Building Strategies ch. 6

The whole idea of Chapter 6 is about Supports. Mostly every robot built or car built is in need of supports. Having Gears is one of the most important parts of supports, a gear that is placed next to a supporting beam holds the beam well and decreases the slipping of the attached parts to the gear. The best way to resist both Tension and Compression is by adding extra connectors, by adding the connectors, the Tension and the Compression would have been lessened dramatically and with the Rigid assemably, it would not easily fall apart. The way that the new idea of studless beam works is that the studless beams can add both beams with stud and without. The old one only allows stud beams to connect. A creative reason for the studless beams was to let it cover up all the parts that show out. In any case, the most important part is the NXT itself, it is needed to be placed at the center just as a shape of a triangle. The reason for placing it at the middle is because it needs to keep the front and back both balanced, if either side is imbalanced, the robot would fall back or drop forth if it moves. Mainly, all problems lead to weight balance, the NXT itself has quite a big weight, as much as 2-3 Motors, if those both were placed in the middle, both front and back would be fine, but if they were all placed at back, they would tilt. The best ideal way would to be placing the NXT at the back/front, and the Motors at the opposite like a scale balance.

Obstacle Coarse Challenge 2

Today we continued the modification of our robot and the creation of our program for the Obstacle Course Challenge. First we programmed the first part of the obstacle course, beginning with a sounds sensor block. We set the threshold to 50 so that it would recognize a clap to begin the program, this went flawlessly and the clap works just fine.
Next we set up the light sensor programming, this worked as well with the smaller set of wheels, however with the larger set of wheels (which make the robot run straighter) the light sensor simply passed over the tape, we are working on fixing this problem.
The last thing we did was modify our build so that the touch sensor was not below, but above the ultrasonic sensor. To do this we had to create our own unique assembly rig that incorporated cross beam and other building techniques to keep the touch sensor steady while remaining above and out of the ultrasonic sensor's way.
We go about halfway through our programming today, getting all the way to touching the wall, backing up and turning. I'm fairly happy with the amount of work we got done. All in all we did a fairly good amount of work today and we will have to come in after school to finish up the whole obstacle coarse.

Building Structures

Today we had to set up our robot for the 4 sensor obstacle course. This challenge was quite difficult just trying to make a robot with all 4 sensors on it. Putting the robot togather was quite tricky figuring out where to put each of the sensors, but i think we figured out a way to get them all on there in the correct way.

The first sensor we put on was the light sensor because we thought it would be the easiest to figure out where to place. We put this sensor on the back of the robot so nothing could get in its way and it could find out the dark and light spots easy.

Next, we put on the sound sensor because that also is pretty easy to figure out where to put. We placed the sound sensor up at the top of the robot so it could here our clap to set of the obstacle course.

Third, we put the ultra sonic sensor on because it was already placed in the front, and we knew that it had to be in the front to be able to work. It was a little bit difficult placing it somewhere in the front where we could place a touch sensor right by it to get in the way of the ultrasonic sensor. We finally found out where to put it.

Lastly, we had to place the touch sensor on it to where it would not get in the way of the ultrasonic sensor. This sensor was the hardest to get on just because the ultrasonic sensor was right in the way. We figured that if we put the touch sensor under the ultrasonic sensor and a bit infront of it then it could still touch something and not get in the way of the utrasonic sensor.
Our final outcome i think came out pretty good and hopefully we can program something that accually works and runs well.

Obstacle Coarse Challenge

The obstacle coarse challenge is a coarse where it challenges us to use all 4 of the sensors on our robot. We will have to put togather a robot that has a light sensor, touch sensor, sound sensor, ultrasonic sensor all on 1 robot. Just putting the robot togather is going to be really tough, not to mention putting a formula togather that accually works for what we have to do. We will have to start the obstacle coarse by clapping once and making the robot go forward and stop in a box that it senses with its light sensor. To make the light sensor sense the difference of the dark and light we will have to find a threshold. Next, it will have to run forward, touch a wall and stop. We will have to place the touch sensor in the front of the robot so it is even possible to touch the wall infront of you. Once you hit the wall the robot will then have to move backwards, stop and turn. After it turns it will have to move forward and sense a wall with the ultra sonic sensor. On this wall we wont be able to touch it like we did with the touch sensor. We will have to make the ultra sonic sensor get about 1 foot from the wall, turn right when it senses it. Finally, it will have to move past the finish line without hitting a stack of coke cans that are in the way, this is also going to be achieved by using the ultra sonic sensor. If you complete this whole obstacle coarse without violating any of the rules you will be graded for knowing how to use all the sensors and knowing how to program them all.

Field of View Experiment

In the Field of View Experiment we laid down a meter long piece of tape on the ground. By using the Ultrasonic sensor we could see how far away the object is. We set up a can in different areas along the tape on each side. We tried to place the can the farthest to either side of the tape and still get a result from the NXT. We put a peice of tape as a marker underneath the can so we can mark out a grid. The farther out we put the can the wider it could go and still get read by the ultrasonic sensor. There was a certain point away from the NXT where it stopped going farther to the side and start heading closer to the tape. Our results show that the NXT's ultra sonic sensor cant see that far to the side. Its max point to where it saw the furthest to the side was at about 1/2 meter.