Main Goal: To try and pick up the golf ball and place it in the box in the quickest time possible.
Functions:
Legos: Are used as support and the base of the robot.
Motors: Get the robot to start and move.
Wheels: Allows the robot to make turns or move forward/backward. Also, are used for support.
Claw: Moves up and down to pick up the golf ball, and then to drop the golf ball.
Systems: We are going to build an NXT robot, with 3 motors. 2 of the motors in the back to help the robot move, and the third to help attach the claw, and to add some power and stability to the robot as well. The claw will move up and down, allowing it to pick up a golf ball, and eventually dropping it in the basket.
Integration: All these pieces work together because they all help connect to different parts of the robot. Also, all are extremely important to help the robot actually produce what we want it to produce.
Concept Sketches:
Analysis: So far, we have obviously had some tough stretches. Sometimes we are unable to think of great ideas, and it hurts our team. We do however feel confident in what we have produced so far, and what we can produce as our final product. We have optimized our time in class very well, and feel our product is very close to being ready for the first trial. We are very excited to see how the first trial will go, and also make improvements based on what we see in the first trial.
Daily Logs:
08/31/19: Today we started on building our robot for the challenge. We have built the robot, and are now adding the claw. We tried many different methods on where to put the claw and decided that the front would be the best. We have written our code, and now need to just fix up the claw a little bit. We did not perform any tests or trials but did elevate the claw. The claw does need more elevation to be able to pick up the golf ball. We started off slow but were able to get back on track with new ideas. Wednesday we will run our first trial, and we are very excited to see how it will go. We will also make improvements/changes to our robot to make it the best possible product that we can make it. I hope for more productive days like today!
09/04/19: Today was a very productive day for us. We had our first trial, and it was almost perfect, but the ball got barely stopped. It was heartbreaking. We added a claw to our design and elevated it. Now we just need to get our robot to move quicker. It was very fun to work on the robot all day and try to improve it as much as possible. We are not nearly done but are very excited to keep working. Hopefully, our next 3 trials will be better! We will have to wait and see! We got times of 9.6 and 8.9 seconds but weren´t able to get the ball in the bucket.
09/06/19: Today we finally got our robot to get the ball in the bucket! It was so exciting and I felt so proud of our hard work and determination. We had a lot of tough spots, but we finally got there and produced a working product. Next class, we are going to improve the robot to try and make it work even quicker. I am very excited to keep working and improving our robot to make it the best possible! Our time was 8.25 seconds, which we are very proud of! It feels great to have a completed product!
Final Design:
Final Product:
Video:
Code:
Comments: We had our robot move forward, quickly pick up the ball to reduce error. Then, we had our robot move backward at full power at 3 seconds, then rotate 2.5 rotations left. Lastly, we had our robot move forward for 2.8 seconds at full power, and drop the golf ball. Everything went to plan, and we feel that we made the most sufficient code possible for the robot possible.
Performance: I am very happy with how we did. We had so many tough problems throughout our entire process but somehow managed to get our robot to work as we wanted. We had many times where we just could not think of anything, but we kept testing and trying, and finally got it. We got our robot to do exactly as we had hoped and it felt really good seeing it work. It is always hard to get something done in a specific number of trials, because of the nerves, but we were able to get through all of that and succeed!
Reflection: We have definitely learned a lot this challenge about what we can do, and to never let ourselves down. We started off very slow with just learning the basics, which was quite worrisome. It´s never easy to be down and come back up, but that was exactly what we were able to do. We kept trying and trying until we got our finished product. We had 2 trials that were unsuccessful, with unofficial times of 9.8 seconds and 9.2 seconds. On our final attempt, we did get the ball in and clocked in at a total of 8.25 seconds. A huge difference. We didn´t let anything get in our way and started from such a low point to feel like we were on top of the world. It was just an amazing feeling and experience to be able to learn so much about engineering and robots. I am so excited for the future challenges we will have this year, and we promised to ourselves to never give up. We wanted to give up so badly in our heads but never did. Since we didn´t quit, we achieved the ultimate goal, pride!
Final Project Video:
Ilan Shelest 