Student "edition" found at {csi dot journalspace dot com}.

Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

In the second meetings of both of my Introduction to Robotics classes for the fifth week of the third term, some of the groups were already preparing for the pictures and the videos for their CD submission.

The Delivery Robot though had to have some of their original tasks changed because they were already using two sensors just to make sure that the “delivery tray” was in place in the middle of the “car”.

One light sensor was to see that the “tray” was at the mouth of the track, which would then turn on, and a touch sensor near the end of the track to make sure that the “tray” was at the end of the track.

That meant they could not have a line follower (needing another light sensor) to mark out the route of the robot from pick up to drop off.

Neither could they use a wall hugger’s bumpers to make their robot move along a predetermined path, which required two touch sensors.

So just like the Artist Robot, the robot had to have a preset number of moves (driving “blind”) from pick up to drop off and back.

Speaking of the Artist Robot, they found out that different driving surfaces (such as the Formica tabletop) gave them varied drawn lengths and turning angles than when they were already using the manila paper they were going to write on.

There was also the question of where they were going to start writing the letters since they could not spare another motor to make the pen go up and down, so the letters had to be legible in one continuous line.

If they drew from the bottom, the “L” would look like an “I”, so they had to draw that letter from the top.

The Security Vault team also decided to make their robot mobile, incorporating wheels driven by a motor to their other motor that was pushing the drawer in and out once the correct “code” was entered and the correct card slid through the opening.

Session 987 also had to change their original robot specifications. Class dismissed.