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Eight students, working in four teams of two, are
constructing robotic vehicles out of Lego components and a computer
control system in Dr. Pierson's ENGR 108: Engineering Design
class this semester.
Throughout the semester, the students will assemble the systems of their robot and
will learn how to design and program the
machines to accomplish different tasks. Various sensors to detect touch and light
will also be added to help control the robots.
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Students design, build and program their robots using a
form of the C programming language. The gray cable seen above on the right
sends the
program to the robot's computer when it's ready. |
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Once programmed, it's time to turn the robot loose and
see what happens - as seen on the right. After the basic movement controls were established, the robotics
engineers raised their sights to more challenging tasks like going
from point A to point B. |
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Since it wouldn't be very interesting if the path from A
to B was a straight line, a maze was used. |
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Each group was asked to come up with a
way for their robot to navigate a maze constructed out of plywood. Two
methods were adopted to accomplish this - two groups programmed a specific
path for their robots to follow through the maze while the other two
groups designed their machines to use touch sensors to find the walls and
avoid them.
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As a further test of their robotics design and programming
skills, the groups next had to add infra red sensing devices to the robots
and program them to use the input from these sensors to follow a line
placed on the ground. |
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First, the groups had to adapt their robots to the new
input technology - enabling them to "see" the difference between
light and dark on the ground. The students are working on this process in
the pictures above.
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Then, with the new sensors attached, the robots were
to successfully follow a 1" black path avoiding water bottles
placed on either side as obstacles. |
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