Lorraine's Progress Summary

December 28th

I have been working on a flowchart for the lab, but I've been having problems incorporating all parts of the program- for example, making sure it doesn't crash into the wall. Most of the program, however is sequential- the robot only activates the scoop once it senses a ball, only goes to the goal once the scoop is activated, only opens the scoop once it reaches the goal.
Instead of a snowplow, I was envisioning two rectangles with open sides that come together to trap the ball. However, using one motor might be simpler.

This week I learned that it is always good to check in a box to see if all parts are there before taking the box home. (I took two servo motors home to discover that they were just spare parts boxes.
Half way done constructing egg grabber, that'll be done this weekend (there wasn't enough time in class for the glue to dry).
Big flowchart is done, this weekend I'll work on the wallfollowing flowchart.
Soldering is a lot harder than it looks- apparently when I was trying to make the distance sensor wires longer, I short circuted them or something because when Amber was trying to run the sensor demo she discovered that it wasn't working.
Goals for this weekend: Finish egg-catcher; Finish wall following flowchart;
Goals for this week (when I get the robot): get wall following up and running(ish), write code for timer part of program;

So I realized that things glued and wired together aren't very stable, and decided to use K'Nex instead.
I kept rebuilding, but now I have something that can easily come on and off the robot and is pretty durable (won't break during transport or spontaneously fall apart while the robot is running).
Wall following is not up and running yet, but I have perfected the egg trap.
For full details check out my Robotics Practical.