Brainstorming - Physical

Iso-Sketch

Name: Anish Roy

Class Period: 1B

Home Campus: Heritage High School

Project Objective: The objective of this project was to follow the design constraints and create a product, using VEX robotics and RobotC, which fit the criteria presented in the activity sheet, specifically, our product was supposed to be the Automated Guided Vehicle which needed to transport materials over a distance when a button is pressed and then return to the initial position either to get more items for transportation or stop completely, done by holding down the same button used to start the program for an extended period of time.

Learning Target: The learning target for this project was to understand how to think through ideas and decide which designs and sensors are the most feasible for solving a problem. Additionally, students will learn how to apply the understanding of mechanics in the creation of a product. Finally, students will learn how to program and debug a program to make it fit the criteria for success, per the project objective.

Personal Reflection: Over the course of this project, I gained significant experience in robotics, specifically, mechanics and programming. Our team split up leadership in differing tasks, my other 2 team members took the lead when it came to product manufacturing, however, I was still involved, conferring with my group repeatedly. For the programming aspect, I was the lead and was expected to complete all aspects that required coding. This included things such as the 2 brainstorming pseudocodes, the program decision matrix, the actual program itself, and testing to see if the program completed all functions it was supposed to. While this was a very intensive job as the automated guided vehicle was relatively simple to build, but required more functions to be completed through programming, I was able to stay on task and complete it by hitting checkpoints every day. Over the course of my coding experience, I was able to find functions that I didn’t think existed before, such as the break function, and I was able to set a foundation for my knowledge in RobotC; before this project, I was still unsure if I would be able to apply what I learned during the instructional period to something for it to complete an actual function. However, I ended up completing my task through patience and diligence. Additionally, the process through which I handled testing and coding also helped me finalize my mindset when it comes to robotic coding, and the main lesson that I took away from this was: always test code in sections to make debugging easier. I found that ideology to be the most helpful when it comes to making something perform multiple functions both efficiently and accurately. Some things that I wish I did differently over the course of the project would be applying myself to the mechanic side more. From the beginning of the project, I was more invested in coding the actual robot since I genuinely liked doing it, however, in doing so, I missed out on significant practice that was associated with the creation of the car. I feel like those types of hard skills are necessary to be the complete package on a robotics team. Other than that, I believe that I performed per my expectations and to the best of my ability as our creation was successful and the project was one of the more enjoyable ones of the year.