CSE Vex Vehicle Project

Throughout the course of this project, I was given another opportunity to collaborate with my fellow tablemates from the last project we worked together on, namely Kaito Suzuki, Joseph Ficarra, and Kobe Chen, whose positions from left to right can be seen in the top image on the left. The objective of this project was to design a machine utilizing VEX V5 parts such as sensors, motors, and a brain for the task of navigating through a maze. Once we were done with this project, our car and its quality were to be tested by students from CSE (Computer Science Engineering) after writing a code into the VEX V5 Brain to instruct the machine through the maze. Going into this project, we didn’t have the knowledge to construct physical vehicles using VEX parts and tools. And to make matters a bit more interesting, right from the start, we faced the constraint of ensuring that our machine's dimensions did not exceed the limit of 8”x8”x8”, which forced us to approach our design in a different way than what we were comfortable with, and we had to find creative solutions to fit all the necessary parts within these tight constraints. Before we even began building the VEX car, we had to present our ideas to Mr. McGarrah after deciding which sketch out of the eight different project ideas that our team members had designed was the best. After ruling out the different project ideas with a decision matrix to evaluate and rank each sketch based on how well they met certain criteria, we found Kobe’s sketch to be the most suitable. So we decided to present that sketch to Mr. McGarrah, and we received approval to move forward with production. We all contributed to the car's construction while also completing other tasks on the document. As we began building, we carefully documented every step of the process and the reasoning behind our design choices (which can be seen in the documentation). Our drivetrain consisted of one motor in front on the right side and one motor on the left side, creating a sort of front- and back-wheel drive. We did this because we had trouble figuring out a way to fit our motors in due to the 8”x8”x8” inch build limit while also making sure that we also fit the design constraints of the project. The way the front and back drivetrains work is through a system whereby turning right would activate only the back left motor and turning left would activate only the front right motor. But as we were building the alternate motors, we realized that the width of our car extended 8 inches. So we had to replace the wheels with smaller plastic ones to ensure that they would fit. However, this created an imbalance in the car. So in the end, we just used the original wheels that we started with, which made the car even and was also uniform with the rest of the car. Our final car was a four-wheel drive designed to fulfill the purpose of driving through a maze with ease while also meeting all of the project requirements. The car consists of a VEX V5 brain, a VEX V5 optical sensor, a VEX V5 distance sensor, and a VEX V5 vision sensor for navigation. And a VEX V5 battery to power the whole machine. Once we had completed building the car, we put together a detailed "How To" guide for the CSE students, providing them with clear instructions on how to build and operate the car. It contained instructions on how to build the car with all of its parts and detailed descriptions for each of the parts used. When we were handing out the project to the CSE students, we were initially apprehensive because we were afraid that the wheels would be screwed in too tightly to the point where they couldn't even move, the axles would be loose, or the wheels were shaking too much. These fears were caused by the fact that during our building, we were not able to test out the quality of our machine that much because we were so focused on adding and removing parts so that the machine would work while fitting the 8x8x8-inch build limit. However, despite our worries, we were excited to receive positive feedback from Mr. McGarrah on our documentation and from the CSE students, who found our "How to" guide easy to follow and the machine itself to be highly effective. Which resulted in our documentation receiving a perfect score. In the end, we were extremely proud of the hard work, effort, and dedication that we had put into this project, and we were happy with the results. Not only did we gain new experience in mechanical engineering, but we also had a lot of fun throughout the project. Overall, a beneficial experience to help me progress toward the future.