Semi-Autonomous Robot Project

Objective: add sensors and programming to your Vex ClawBot that enable it to pick up a plastic water bottle and deliver it to a drop-off zone.

Constraints / Details

  • The robot will be controlled remotely using a VexJet joystick
  • Only three buttons on the VexJet controller may be used, and none of the axes (joysticks) may be used. The purpose of this constraint is twofold: 1) Create and incentive for the teams to write fancy programs, 2) Prevent the teams from spending hours driving the robot around for their own amusement – this is not a productive use of class time.
  • The robot must use at least four different types of sensors. For the purposes of this constraint, bump switches and limit switches are the same type of switch. In addition to having the sensors mounted on the robot, the robot code must actually use these sensors to help it perform its task.
  • If desired, a program may be configured to start automatically when the Cortex is turned on. This is not required.
  • This challenge will take place on a 3×4 grid of  2’x2′ interlocking foam tiles (12 tiles).
  • The robot and water bottle will both be placed on the grid in random locations.
  • The foam tile surface will have red gaffer’s tape along its outside edge; this tape can be used to help the robot sense the edge and stay on the challenge surface.
  • Use a bottle size between 12 oz and 20 oz; use any brand of water bottle.
  • The drop-off area will be one of the corner tiles of the tile grid. It will be taped off with red gaffer’s tape all along its perimeter.
  • The drop-off area will have a 12 in tall cardboard backing on two edges (the sides outside the field) that can be used to help sense that area.
  • The plastic water bottle may be marked with a strip of white electrical tape to help the robot sense the bottle.

Grading

This project will be worth 60 points, and it will be graded as follows.

  • 15 points: Project Management / Team Collaboration: BaseCamp project should have active discussion and evidence that you made successful use of the to do list items to assign and track work for each member of the group. BaseCamp is your Engineer’s Notebook for this project. It should be updated at least once every day, and it should provide a clear record of the work completed, the reasoning behind the work, the technical details of the project, and the problem solving process.
  • 15 Points: Brainstorming / Design Process / Idea Selection: BaseCamp should include some rich discussion that shows how you solved the design challenge, what problems you encountered, what ideas you had for solving them, and what ended up working.
  • 10 Points: Following all project constraints: read the constraints carefully, because this portion of the grade is all or nothing. Hint: if you use too many buttons or not enough sensors, you will forfeit these points.
  • 10 Points: Annotated code posted on BaseCamp: code must have good comments so that if a reasonably competent Robot C programmer who is not familiar with your project downloaded it, its purpose and flow would make sense.
  • 10 Points: Successful Robot Function: the robot is able to complete its tasks as described above. If the robot isn’t able to complete the task on its first try, the team will lose 1 point and have a chance to try again with new random locations. This process can continue until the robot is successful or the team runs out of points.

Notice that 40 of those 60 points will be graded by looking at what your group has posted on BaseCamp. A perfectly functioning robot with no BaseCamp documentation will therefore be worth 20/60, so please attend to the project management and documentation aspects of this project. Those are important pieces of the learning in this project!