Plan of Action:
My Partner and I chose to do the mall challenge, where the Cricket must find light. We saw the track, and that the robot must go straight up the track, take a left around a corner, go straight for a shorter distance, then take another left towards the lights at the end of the track. Our plan was to program the robot to maneuver around this track, and to use its light sensors to find the light. Our goals during this experiment are to find how much time we need to allow the Cricket to travel the pathway, as well as how many sensors are necessary, and when the sensors need to be activated.
First Plan:
We programmed the robot to go straight along the path for 4 seconds, and then take the left turn while only activating the B wheel. Then, we allowed the robot to continue along this path for 2 seconds, before we allowed the light sensors to be turned on.
Problems:
[[<<]As you can see, our first attempt to complete this task, didn’t work out as expected. We realized that the robot must be programmed to take that second left turn, before the light sensors could be activated. Without taking this turn first, the sensors were not able to read accurately. We also realized that 4 seconds was too long of a time period for the robot to move along the first straight part of the path.
Second Plan:
Next, we programmed the Cricket to be activated with both A and B wheels to continue 3 seconds down the first path. Then, it would take a 90 degree turn on its B wheel for ten seconds, and continue straight down that path for 2 seconds. Finally, the Cricket was programmed to take another 90 degree turn on its B wheel for another ten seconds before it continued straight with both A and B for 1 second and the two light sensors were activated.
Problems:
Our second attempt worked much better then the first, although it still wasn’t perfect! 3 seconds proved to be too long for the first straight path, yet we found that the 1 and 2 seconds used for the turns and next path worked out fine. We had placed two light sensors on the Cricket, one on the front, and one on the back. This method didn’t seem effective, but we ran out of time before we could modify our sensors.
Today we found out that we hadn't used the best possible way to complete our task. Monday we will have to figure out how to use the light sensor to guide the robot through the whole path, instead of programming the path before using the sensors.
We ran out of time, and weren't able to get our robot to complete the entire path. We were able to test the sensitivity of the light sensor, and use its different measurements around the path so it could be completed. With more time, we could have perfected it.
