Lab 4 Robot: Team 2 Qualcomm

This is our robot for ECE 5, it should be able to detect a black line on a white surface and be able to navigate the line and follow it.

Last Week Improvements:

During the last week, we moved all of the hardware onto our new and improved chassis, however, we ran into a lot of issues. At the very least, it was able to finish the drag race very slowly, but on the other tracks we ended up having to fix a bunch of parts, loose cables, resolder faulty wires, etc. which proved to be a very challenging time for us because we tested it the day before and it was following a line without difficulty. Over the course of the week of the competition, we spent time trying to get the robot to work by making miniscule changes to our PID values, our line following code, and overall arranged the parts as best as we could with the limited resources that were accessible in the busy lab. We were confident during the day before the competition since it was able to follow a loop with little difficulty, at a very fast rate too. However, we were not able to finish two of the tracks and ended up staying until office hours to complete the robot in order to still get credit. With the help of some of the TA's and Professor Morris himself, he was able to save us by discovering that some of our wires just ended up being faulty, which was essentially the only thing that happened to be wrong with the entire thing. If not for him, we probably would not have been able to fix the robot, and through sheer willpower and our Professor's guidance, we were able to finish the robot for credit and get it to follow a loop successfully and accurately, and for that, we as Team Qualcomm, last place in all tracks, are forever grateful.

• 1 Arduino Mega

• 1 USB Cable A-B

• 1 Cart Chassis – 3D Printed

• 1 Caster

• 1 L298N Motor Driver

• LEDs

• 2 DC Motors

• 2 Wheels

• 2 Breadboards

• AA and 9V battery packs

• 4 Potentiometers

• 7 Resistors (10k Ohms)

• 7 Photoresistor

• 6 AA Batteries

• 1 9V Battery

This was the prototype for our robot. Our initial chassis design is shown here, which we created using Onshape. This design was good enough to hold each part in place while having a secure base to rely upon. The chassis was sturdy, but the only issue was the holes for each photoresistor. Instead, by making physical modifications, we made one single opening for the photoresistors rather than having holes for each of them. Other than that, it was a formidable chassis that served its purpose for our prototype.

For our PID values, and after much trial and error, we decided to leave them at their default settings and used the potentiometers to change our values.

Each SPID Value Accordingly (Potentiometers):

S: About halfway

P: More than halfway

I: Default

D: Less than halfway

We chose these settings for our robot because it optimizes the robot's ability to find the line without overshooting and corrects itself accordingly.

Track 1: Drag Race, 1 minute, last place

For this track, we left on the same settings but turned up the speed.

Track 2: Frequency Track

N/A, unable to finish track

Track 3: Loop Track

N/A, unable to finish track

Our team poster, as shown above, showcases all of the labs we'd accomplished this quarter with emphasis on Lab 4 which was the final project, e.g. our robot.

Our robot doing the loop and finishing the Drag Race, however, we do not have any videos for the other two tracks.