Sunday, 13 September 2009

I suck at writing blog.
But still, here's my point of view on the robots.

Small and agile with risks are what our competitors did during the K. Terengganu NRC.
They used the aim and shoot method.
This method basically is to make the robot move straight and grab ( other methods also apply) the object and put it to the destination.
They risk:
  1. The position of the robot at start point must be EXACTLY where they have programmed.
  2. Battery voltage must be EXACTLY the same as what they have programmed using.
  3. Luck. No luck = GG
  4. They must programmed it correctly in a sense that the programming must be accurate by the millimeter. And that's just too back-breaking for us?
  5. Even the condition of the mat will AFFECT the performance AKA determine their fate.
THE SLIGHTEST MISCALCULATION, MISTAKES, EVEN BY A MM, WILL RESULT IN FAILURE.




But if, and if, they are:
  1. Lucky
  2. Able to program well
  3. Makes no mistake.
They get lots of points as their robot is fast.


Next, is what we did.

Use Light Sensors to move with the black lines on the mat.

This method is:

  1. More accurate.
  2. May auto-recover.
  3. Minimises human-error as the robot will move itself without requiring us to aim the robot.
  4. It's now a fully-automated robot. No a car that picks up objects blindly.
Nothing is perfect. Same goes with this method.

It's :
  1. SLOWER if compared with aim and shoot method. But if it's programmed well it may go faster ? ( unconfirmed, no chance for us to see others use this method )
Method of getting object.

This is gives us a headache till the very end of the competition.
We thought of all kinds of methods. Some fail. Some shines.
At last, we decided to go with the box method.
The robot's arm is a square that extends out of the robot.

The arm

We got frustrated thinking of other methods that we go ahead with a very straight forward box that just swoops in the object.

Well, this method brings a lot of problem.
Especially with the rubber object.
Rubber + mat = Friction and loads of it.

With the robot pulling the object, it's like telling it a mammoth task for the robot. It squeaks, jerks and even jumped over the object with the object still stationary.


There's also the grab method, grab-n-lift method, scoop method and so on.




It's late now. gtg. So, anything missing? Wrong? Bullshits? Please dump it in the comments.
And hopefully, I'll make up to it in my next post.




P.S. This is my first time writing and posting a blog post.


2 comments:

Keano said...

hey, congrats on your first post but i sensed a lot of anger in your post :S

maybe you can tone down your anger in your next post or someone will censor it hahaha...just kidding :)

CH said...

Flaming in your article ? LOL That's really something new.