Week 5

This was the week of the ‘Tip the Can’ challenge. To be successful in this challenge we first had to get our robot to turn, using the rangefinder find the can. Drive towards the can, touch it and reverse back. For it to be a valid result we had to meet a criteria: green light on the can and dimensions to be 100mmx100mm and the weight less than 500 grams.

From the work we carried out in week four building the robot the final part was to solder the motors. Our motors were smaller than most of the other teams and we thought we this gave us and advantage as our robot was more compact. Another characteristic which we liked about the robot is that it has a low center of gravity which is important for the robo sumo competition as it will not be pushed off easily.

We placed the motors in the body and assembled the robot. When we turned the battery’s on our robot was not moving and we realized we had a made a mistake along the way. We found that the solder had broke off in one of the motors and the small hoop had broken off too. I had to leave this lab early on medical grounds , but i was informed from my team members that we were unsuccessful in completing the Tip the can challenge in our first attempt.