Index Robotics Page

Robotics


What makes a robot

A COMPUTER

All robots must have a computer to function.

A MOTOR

A robot must have at lest one motor to move and most have many of them.

A SENSOR

A robot must have a sensor in order to interact with the world around it.

Amazon's Robots

Amazon has big storage houses that would take forever to find something in so they hired a bunch of robots to assist them in finding what they need. Here's a video.

Monday

CHALLENG

*Make a robot with a Lego NXT robot kits.

WHAT WE DID

First we built some thing like this.

The we added some a touch sensor to it to make it sense it soundings. This is the code we used to make this happened. First is checks if the touch sensor is on if it is not it will go forward and turn left or right, but if the sensor is turned on (ex. from running into a wall) it with go backwards and turn randomly. This will continue until it is turned off.

We had many errors in the code, do to how long it was since I last used python, so it took many tries to get it to work. Next I think I will add the sonar and extra motor to make a sonar that can detect objects in a 360 degrees field of view(didn't happened).

Tuesday

CHALLENG

*Find coloured pieces of paper on the floor with our robots.

WHAT WE DID

First to do this we add a colour sensor to the front of our robot facing down so it can tell if the robot is on the paper. The code we used to do this is shown below.

First I made it tell me the color it sees then based on the information it will chose whether to keep on going to to stop. This is determined if it sees black or green(what the robot think the color of the floor is) and if true it will keep moving. Next It sees if there is something in front of it, if there is it will move backwards and turn around. Also if the path is clear it will go forward at a random speed and turn left at a random speed. Lastly if it detects a colored paper under it, it will spin right for 5 seconds and then stop.

Do to the fact that our robot was moving randomly it took forever for our robot to find a piece of paper. To fix this I would have to make the sensor look around for the color and have the robot move to the place were the sensor thinks it found the paper, but this is a little to much for me right now.

Wednesday

CHALLENG

*Have our robot follow a line

WHAT WE DID

First we removed all of the sensors and then I placed the color sensor to find the color right in front of the robot. With all the building done we could start to program and after a lot of revisions we got this code.

First it sees if it is on the blue line and if it is it will go forward but if not it will turn a 90 degree angle (were the hopefully the 90 degree angle in the line is). Lastly if it detects green(where the finish is) it will stop. The biggest problem I had was making it move strait. First I tried to counter react it by making it turn the the other way just a little, but it just made the robot deviate the other way. I ended up just remove it and just stuck with the forward even though it was off. At the end of the day I managed to make the robot follow the line(I did push it so it would stay on the line.) and stop when it reached its goal, but I would never be able to beat the robots from Amazon.

Thursday

CHALLENG

*Use a sonar and a touch sensor to make a battle bot.

WHAT WE DID

I simply copied and pasted the code from Monday, but made it so when the sensor is hit it will turn off. (Code below)

Since we finished so early we got come code from another group that allowed us to use the keyboard to control the robot. I end up make improvements to the robot by adding a claw to it and made the program able to support it. The last improvement I made to the code was having the keys 1-4 play different sounds. Now since there were 2 groups with the manual controls we had a death battle. I won by flipping his robot over with my claw. ,

Friday

CHALLENG

*Have the robot stay on the desk

WHAT WE DID

I simply reused the scatter code and change the position of the sonar, well with some editing with the code. (code below)

First it looks for the desk below and ahead of it and if it is found it will go forward and then turn. But if it find the edge it will backup and then continue moving.

ROVERS

Then after I got mine passed another group attached an Iphone to there robot and used the manual control code to make a rover. Then I realized that we had the resources to do the same to are robot, and we made a rover that went to explore the teachers lounge.