Robotics Project 3

Due: In class demo Dec 20th (part of final time) with papers due the following day.

Overview and Objective:

You're group will clean the place up.

The Possible Projects:

1. Your group may decorate the recycle bin any way you like to make it easier to find.
2. Your group can provide me a 'bench' to put the can on so long at it is between 4 and 8 inches high. 
3. The cans will be the tall skinny can size, I'll provide 3 cans, but if your groups crumple then you may need to get more.
4. We will use the large empty space near the side whiteboard for the demo.
1. You will give me your bench, I will put the can on the bench and put the recycle bin elsewhere
2. I'll put the robot in some third location (almost certainly facing away from the can).
3. Your robot will need to
1. find the can,
2. then pick it up
3. find the recycle bit
4. take the can to the bin
5. deposit the can in the bin

Given our limited time, the green will be extra credit. the base project will be to take the can to the bin and dump the can into the bin.

A few useful notes

• Don't forget to charge your robot. If you ever start to see weird behavior running the same program that used to work, try recharging the robot.

• All of the issues that you learned about in your last lab still apply including

  • sometimes the same stimulus will produce different output from two different sensors.

these examples might help

have a look at this demo

and this one

The Project report

The project report is a report of what you tried to do, what you did, what you learned and what you accomplished. To make my correcting easier, let me give you guidelines on what I'd like to see in it. Make sure you use section headings to make each section easy to find.

• Introduction

  • this is where you explain the problem you were trying to solve and why it is relevant

• Robot design

  • Here tell me what sort of robot you designed (in hardware). Tell me what worked and what did not work. Discuss what you learned  based on what worked and what did not.

• Software design

  • Here discuss what sort of control program you built. Again tell me what worked and what did not. Discuss what you learned about robot control software from your experience. Discuss your approach and its relevance to both the current task at hand and the general problem of robots acting in the world. 

  • Include a diagram of your behaviors and their interactions.

• Evaluate your robot

  • Evaluate your robots suitability for the task and the environment include your robot's actual performance in the demo. How well would your robot perform in other environments?

• Concluding discussion

  • Summarize what you learned. Consider the following target audience: next year's robotics students. In this section, summarize from the preceding sections all of the worthwhile dos and don'ts that you discovered in doing this lab. It is not really relevant that your robot did really great unless you tell the reader why. Think about what you would have liked to know when you first saw this lab, and if you have any insights after doing the lab, share them here.