91.548 Robots

Assignment Paper

Assignment No. 4

Due Date: Feb. 24, 2003

Course: 91.548 Robots 2003 Spring

Student: Jianping Zhou

Instructor: Prof. Fred Martin

Project Ideas

Project #1 Stout Hamster

Triangularly topologized lego beam frames construct outer architecture of a sphere. At every vertex is a shoe with smooth spherical surface, such that the sphere is able to roll on a floor easily, and the inside details can be seen clearly. The sphere has a mouth, which we consider is located on the bottom of the sphere. From this mouth, an extendable lever mechanism can stretch out to lift the sphere up. There is a touch sensor on the bottom of this mechanism. Inside the sphere there is motor driven swing hammer, which we call supplement weight. When the extendable lever mechanism is in folding state, the more weight at mouth position plus the assistance of supplement weight make the sphere roll towards the position of mouth facing down. When the touch sensor is pressed, a motor draws the lever mechanism, and make it stretch, lifting the sphere up. The position of supplement weight and the floor horizons level may not guarantee the exact gravity line of the sphere is same as the center line of lever mechanism. So the sphere will fell down before reaching the highest. When the sphere fell down, the lever mechanism folds back, the sphere try next attempt. Luckily enough once it gets the right gravity line, the sphere stands in the highest, a happy light flashes. The randomly tiny adjustment of position of supplement weight provides more curiosity of the play. This toy might use handy cricket for no time critical reason.

This toy is very heuristic and intuitive to the concept of what is gravity center of an object, and how the position of gravity center affects the movement and behavior.

This project is my most desired. But before it becomes successful there are lots of experiments to decide some sizes and parameters, and make-ups. So I am afraid whether it fits our time frame.

Project #2 Mr. Jackson Worm

Mr. Jackson Worm is a devastating pop fan. His body is a strand of consecutive segments. Every middle segment contains a passive gear, step motor and an active gear(or DC motor and gear set), the tail contains only motor and active gear; whereas the head is a single passive gear. The gesture of every segment is decided by the gesture and driving gear position of previous segment. The motors of segments respond to a microphone sensor differently based on the pop’s tone and melody pitch. So when the pop shows up, Mr. Jackson Worm waves his body following the song. The idea of modularizing the segment part is beneficial to extend or cut Mr. Jackson’s body. This toy might use logochip for quick actions.

This toy is very funny and attractive. Although its mechanical structure is simple, the coding should be careful to ensure the effect.

Project #3 Mom!!

Two bots are getting wild. They run at random direction, speed and distance. However their lovely mom is always watching them through her sonar system, so there seem no problems. The mom has two rules. First, when any bot runs out of the first range, he should cry and try to get back (he still run randomly, may or not may come back), mom will not help him anymore. Second if any bot runs out of the second range, he should keep still, mom will find him. During mom finding him, another bot should follow her without random running. When all are in safety, bots get craze again. This play might use three handy cricket for the reason of infrared communication.

This toy mainly demonstrates infrared communication and sonar positioning technique. So it is quite systematic practice.

Other ideas includes:

1. Use ordinary flash light combining with light sensor, and several mirrors to visually simulate how optical fibers transmit data and data communication protocols work

2. Design a microcontroller based apple and potato peeler using touch or distance sensor