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TeamEggOfDestiny

Egg of Destiny

Gundam 0x08

Meet the Team: David Ouk , Linda Son & Gundam 0x08

Mission: "Find and capture the desired egg color with minimal casualties!"

Battle Plan: Operation Egg Hunt

• Find a ball using distance sensor

• Capture the ball

• Identify the ball's color, blue or yellow

• Return to goal OR throw ball away if undesired

• Release the ball into goal if desired ball color

Meet the Team Mascot: Pookie the Pilot!!
Courtesy of Chanliny Lim

Detailed Plan:

Our create was designed and programmed to capture the balls using many different sensors and other equipments: 3 light sensors, one distance sensor, two bumps sensor, a switch( for switching between blue and yellow balls), a servo motor, cricket display, and LOTS of legos. Finding the balls is done by using the spiral driving pattern while polling the two bumps sensors to avoid obstacles and the distance sensor for a big change in distance over a small period of time (meaning there's a high possibility that a ball is detected). When detected this big change, the Create stop driving and use the distance sensor to determine the distance it has to drive to get to the ball then drive for that distance and capture the ball. After the ball is captured, a light sensor is used to identify the ball color, if undesired push it away and look for another one, if it's the desired color, the Create will look for the goal using the other two light sensors to look for the brightest place (the goal) and drive towards it. When the goal is near (when light value is brightest), the Create will open the rig and push the ball in. It shall then continue its mission until the 2 minutes ended. Briefing Concluded ~_^ --by David

Project Management Overview

The project coordination was an overall success, we always updated each other on what we're doing and our progress so we know we're on the right track. The biggest coordination problem we had was that we were always unsure as to which ideas were better. Procrastination wasn't a big problem, but we definitely spent a lot of time working on things that weren't even going to work, so we wasted a lot of time re-doing things. Wedivided our task quite evenly; we both worked hard to finish our parts, and we actually accomplished them.

Results:

So far the results of our effort is very pleasing. All the parts are done, and each pieces of codes are doing what they supposed to do. Finding the ball using spiral driving pattern is quite effective in finding the balls by covering most of the area. Distance sensor detect ball within its range effectively, and successfully drive to distance needed in order to capture the ball. Identifying the ball's color or detect no ball is working as expected. Returning to goal and score using braitenberg's method is also a success. I am proud of what we've accomplished, and all we need to do now is to incorporate our codes and do some egg hunting!

Lessons Learned

David's lessons:
I've faced many problems trying to accomplish the egg hunt project. One of the biggest challenge I overcame was finding the ball by polling the distance sensor for a sudden change (similar to derivative but not instantaneous). Exploring the distance sensor to filter out some of the distance values was also a tedious process that I accomplished. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a way to filter out the sudden change detected when the sensor faces the corner, causing it to think it's detecting a ball.

• During this milestone project, time management was one of our biggest problem. We were lost on exactly we were supposed to do in the beginning and wasted a lot of precious time, and we ended up finishing most of our parts during the last few days. Procrastination cost me my bedtime!
• Communication was also very important. Our project could've been much easier if we coordinate the team together in an organized manner.
• I learned that to program effectively, I need to debug every small pieces of codes because if I don't it will come back and haunt me later as I continue to write my codes(codes don't work the way you want it = NIGHTMARE!!).
• KISS Principle- I thought the more complex the better, but now I understand that to design something simple to accomplish same goal is the way to go!
• I should listen to what my partner has to say even if it sounded dumb and impossible. =]
• I am proud to say that "Now, I can manage a project this size thanks to the egg hunt project."
• I believe that I learned to become a better programmer this semester.
• Finally, I am very happy that I learned how to use the sensors that are being integrated into robots today.

Linda's lesson:
* I learned that project management is very important to the punctual completion of any group project. The initial task of figuring out what needs to be done, who'll do it, and when, is extremely important and saves a lot of time for later for when any plans change.

• Having one person in charge and overlooking everything is important to have for when you're putting together everyone's individual parts. This ensures everything fits together smoothly.
• It's important to know about the tools you're working with...so that you don't risk ending up with a fried Command Module -_-;
• Even if a task is planned to be completed by the end of the week, you should work on it a little bit every day so that you'll know if you're on the right track and will have time to fix it.

Some of the pictures taken when we were working: