Day 9: Programming, Timing & Sensors

On this day we spent all of our time working on our robots. We had 2 competitions to perform; they were the same - both were to travel through a black tape labyrinth. The hard part of this was that we could not control the robot, instead, it had to be autonomous: by itself.

The first time we had to do it using just timing; figuring out how many tiles the robot moved with a given amount of power for a given amount of time. Also, we had to figure out how to run the motors to find a proper way of turning the robot. We programmed the labyrinth dimensions into the robot based on our measurements. It was tough to be able to predict the friction, battery drainage, and other mechanical discrepancies in the robot.
Then we were placed in teams of 2 for the next part & the rest of the class.
Next, we had to do it with sensors. The sensor we used was similar to a tachometer & it helped a lot! My robot did a whole lot better. This shows the efficiency and importance of sensors, even something as simple as a tachometer, in an autonomous to robot program.


This is my robot: