Last Blog Post

I think that my robot did pretty well this time. I finally was able to get one done, and for that Im excited. I think the only problem I had was that the ball could fall out relatively easily if you just flipped it over. But other than that I don't think there was much else I could have made better with more time. Because if I put a bar ontop of that to not let the ball out then the lever that flipped the ball out wouldn't have made it all the way. This would also have caused the switch that doesn't let another ball in would grind against that piece making it wear itself out because the motor wouldn't run. I think the hardest part about this final project was just the coding. If you could build something that would meet all the neccesary requirements then it wasn't that hard. Coding you had to do like 20 different things too and then repeat them.

H-33

I am satisfied with my project today. I feel that my robot performed very well. The only problem I had was that the ball did not fully exit the robot. It got stuck on the tiny edge formed by the LEGO brick at the bottom of my ramp. The bump was so slight that the ball would exit the robot consistently just if it was oriented differently on the desk. I was not too happy with myself that I let this mistake slide. However, I was not really disappointed because my robot performed very well. Overall, I felt that this project was fairly simple and more fun than the other ones because the robot was more fun to build.

H-33

In all, I was fairly satisfied with my final project, especially given the fact that I missed the chance to do much of the work on it I could have. I knew about the trouble my robot had keeping the ball in without running the motors constantly, but did not have time to fix it due to my absences. With those days, I probably would have known of the problem sooner and had a chance to fix it. I think that if I had had the chance to do more tests, I would have discovered the problem with the blue balls and been able to fix it too. I was generally pleased with the project though, since I would have been able to do everything if my original plan would not have destroyed the motors and I had had time to adjust the light sensor's level setting in my program. I was very pleased with one last-minute fix I made, which worked better than expected. I did not plan on the wand that expelled the ball to turn and just rattle around inside the box. Instead I expected it's base to remain rigid and have to stick and work to get in and out of the box. It proved very versatile and did its job perfectly.

H-32

Today I finished just about all the programming for my robot. In the first 25 minutes of class tomorrow I will just have to make it so that it can keep 'eating' and 'digesting' the 'flies'. I will probably just set up a loop. I have my 'happy' song just about done, I just need to change a few notes but then I will be good and ready for this challenge.

Challenge 3

Today I came in after school to work on my robot. I now have it completely finished and all of the requirements completed. I didn't come up with my own song, props to jude for coding the entire happy birthday song, but found that there are "scrolls" that you can use to bring up premade songs. I was able to get my robot to attract the fly, bring it into the trap, close the door at just the right moment. I think its worth nothing that it does it in 5/100ths of seeing the ball and then play the digesting song then flipping the ball out of the trap. It then does all that in reverse completely setting itself up for the process again. I actually tried this 10 times and it worked every time without a hitch, I only stopped because it got boring and was pretty much proof of concept for me anyway. Well I'm really glad that I was able to get this done. Hopefully it will work all the way tomorrow.
Even though I got it to work pretty well, there were a lot of problems I had to get through. The timing was a pretty bad problem. As If I didn't get it right there would be times when one part would grind against another while trying to move. And the other problem I had was when there would be too much wiring, (because I used all the short wires, I had the one 150 mm or cm one left.) So my Dad said that I should wrap those around the base. Instead of doing that I just moved the RCX to the other side and sat it there. And the wiring was troublesome at times, because it matters as to what direction you put it on and then test it and what way you put it if you move something. Because this can completely change the direction of the motors your using.

H-31

Today, I solved one problem, but encountered another. I fixed my issues with the light sensor by testing the light level sensed with and without a ball, and that part of my robot is working now. This allowed me to make my first full test, and as I was doing it, I discovered that my ejection method doesn't work as I expected it to. This should be fairly easy to fix, and I think I will be able to finish tomorrow.

H-30

While I was not here today, and made no progress, I will give an update as to how far along my robot is. The robot is completely built, and the program is almost written, only needing adjustments related to the light sensor. This should be easy, and I expect to finish on time.