Here is a copy of our final presentation for mechatronics:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B7H2olq2nI5bYzk5NjRjMGYtZDg1MC00ZTUwLWEzMDYtNmE5NzI0MjliZWU2&hl=en
The presentation went well aside from a slight technical difficulty with the video.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Tuesday February 15th
Today we received a presentation about giving presentations. Professor Mason claimed that his lecture would last 30 minutes, yet it lasted an hour. This was an invaluable lesson about presenting. Anything that you expect to take a minute will take twice as long.
The rest of the evening was spent working on the presentation. I generated this lovely graphic, which looks like it was put together by a 5 year old, in order to explain our programming strategy.
This illustrates the 5 major paths that the robot could take through the area.
The over arching programming strategy was to write code which handled each of these paths. The result was that we created a much larger program than was necessary, and the scale of it prevented us from making the lower level elements robust enough to always function.
-B
The rest of the evening was spent working on the presentation. I generated this lovely graphic, which looks like it was put together by a 5 year old, in order to explain our programming strategy.
This illustrates the 5 major paths that the robot could take through the area.The over arching programming strategy was to write code which handled each of these paths. The result was that we created a much larger program than was necessary, and the scale of it prevented us from making the lower level elements robust enough to always function.
-B
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
RSSC meeting was a bust
The robot we built did not perform up to its potential on Saturday. Some issues which could have been resolved were not finished. A significant programming error crept up on Friday which ate most of our development time.
During the RSSC meeting, there was a lecture about using ROS (Robot Operating System). The lecture was interesting enough to warrant further investigation. It may not be a feasible switch for the robomagellan platform because of the migration and learning barrier.
During the RSSC meeting, there was a lecture about using ROS (Robot Operating System). The lecture was interesting enough to warrant further investigation. It may not be a feasible switch for the robomagellan platform because of the migration and learning barrier.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Friday, February 4, 2011
Genetic Counseling
Today we were introduced to Pert charts and Gannt Charts. These are useful tools in time management for engineering projects. They are commonly found in many industrial applications and are named after Henry Gannt who published his charts in the 1910s.
The main concept is to organize projects into independent chunks which can be worked on in parallel or in series. series activities will follow each other on the time line horizontally, and parallel projects can be arranged vertically.
The following is an example of a Gannt chart.
Using the concept of a Gannt chart, Mitchell and I were able to separate our responsibilities and complete the major structural components of our competition robot in a few hours. The result is the Genetic Counseling robot!
The rest of our time was spent mounting and testing the sensors. At one point, the color sensor's ground rail cracked and it had to be re-soldered. Luckily, it is now completely functional. Watch out RSSC we are coming for your trophies!
The main concept is to organize projects into independent chunks which can be worked on in parallel or in series. series activities will follow each other on the time line horizontally, and parallel projects can be arranged vertically.
The following is an example of a Gannt chart.
Using the concept of a Gannt chart, Mitchell and I were able to separate our responsibilities and complete the major structural components of our competition robot in a few hours. The result is the Genetic Counseling robot!
The rest of our time was spent mounting and testing the sensors. At one point, the color sensor's ground rail cracked and it had to be re-soldered. Luckily, it is now completely functional. Watch out RSSC we are coming for your trophies!
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Color Sensor
Here is the final version of the code which was uploaded to the Pic 14M to get an analogue signal for the color sensor.
CODE BEGINS:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
symbol redgreen = b3
symbol redblue = b4
symbol greenblue = b5
init:
pwmout 2,99,0
main:
low 1 ;red on
pause 125
readadc 0, b0 ;how much red?
pause 125
high 1 ;red off
low 2 ;green on
pause 125
readadc 0, b1 ;how much green?
pause 125
high 2 ;green off
low 3 ;blue on
pause 125
readadc 0, b2 ;how much blue?
pause 125
high 3 ;blue off
redgreen = b1-b0
redblue = b2-b0
greenblue = b2-b1
;readadc 4, b6
serout 0, N2400, (10,13)
serout 0, N2400, (#b0, " ",#b1, " ", #b2 )
if redgreen > 10 AND redgreen <> 10 AND redblue <150 then red
if redgreen <> 150 AND greenblue > 10 AND greenblue < 150then green
if redblue <> 150 AND greenblue <>150 then blue
low 4
low 5
goto main
red:
pwmout 2, 99, 0
high 4
low 5
goto main
green:
pwmout 2, 99, 150
high 4
high 5
goto main
blue:
high 5
low 4
pwmout 2, 99, 250
goto main
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CODE ENDS:
The sensor activates a 3 state LED which can emit a red green or blue light, and then measures the voltage level on an input pin which is connected to a CDS cell. the theory is that blue objects will reflect more light when a blue object is in front of it, and the resistance of the CDS cell will increase, thereby causing a corresponding voltage change on the input pin. The sensor measures voltage values for each of the color states and makes a decision based on the resultant data. The most difficult part of this project was getting the analogue signal to function properly. I spent at least an hour trying to get a coherent signal from the sensor, only to be informed that I forgot to comment out some of my debugging code.
It works now, and can interface with the vex brain! On to other projects!
CODE BEGINS:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
symbol redgreen = b3
symbol redblue = b4
symbol greenblue = b5
init:
pwmout 2,99,0
main:
low 1 ;red on
pause 125
readadc 0, b0 ;how much red?
pause 125
high 1 ;red off
low 2 ;green on
pause 125
readadc 0, b1 ;how much green?
pause 125
high 2 ;green off
low 3 ;blue on
pause 125
readadc 0, b2 ;how much blue?
pause 125
high 3 ;blue off
redgreen = b1-b0
redblue = b2-b0
greenblue = b2-b1
;readadc 4, b6
serout 0, N2400, (10,13)
serout 0, N2400, (#b0, " ",#b1, " ", #b2 )
if redgreen > 10 AND redgreen <> 10 AND redblue <150 then red
if redgreen <> 150 AND greenblue > 10 AND greenblue < 150then green
if redblue <> 150 AND greenblue <>150 then blue
low 4
low 5
goto main
red:
pwmout 2, 99, 0
high 4
low 5
goto main
green:
pwmout 2, 99, 150
high 4
high 5
goto main
blue:
high 5
low 4
pwmout 2, 99, 250
goto main
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CODE ENDS:
The sensor activates a 3 state LED which can emit a red green or blue light, and then measures the voltage level on an input pin which is connected to a CDS cell. the theory is that blue objects will reflect more light when a blue object is in front of it, and the resistance of the CDS cell will increase, thereby causing a corresponding voltage change on the input pin. The sensor measures voltage values for each of the color states and makes a decision based on the resultant data. The most difficult part of this project was getting the analogue signal to function properly. I spent at least an hour trying to get a coherent signal from the sensor, only to be informed that I forgot to comment out some of my debugging code.
It works now, and can interface with the vex brain! On to other projects!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)