During this project, our goal was to create two robots capable of responding to disasters. The Red Bot uses bumpers and line following to direct disaster survivors to an exit. Many rescue situations often result in more people hurt by staying in a collapsing or dangerous zone, this robot would mitigate this aspect. Additionally the Tamiya, GearBox, we nicknamed Duracell uses infrared sensors, touch sensors and an ultra sonic sensors. The goal of our robots are to assist people who cannot escape on their own. The robot will alert rescuers to the exact location of those endangered, allowing for full effectiveness.

Summary of ME and CS:

Summary of Robotics:

• A robot is a program that exists in the physical world

  • A robot senses it's environment and acts on it

  • A robot has to be able to extract information from it's environment, which is done through sensors

• It must be possible to reprogram a robot

• A robot acts with actuators which controls effectors

  • E.g Servo Motor (Actuator) and plane wings (Effector)

• Action v.s Behavior

  • A Behavior is what an observer sees the robot doing

  • Behavior is determined by a set of specific actions

• Autonomy is another major factor in a Robot

  • A robot can have partial autonomy like a drone

  • And complete autonomy like a Rumba

• Control refers to the way in which sensing and action are fully connected

• An Effector is a device that has an effect on the environment the robot is in, the purpose of a controller is manipulate this effect to be purposeful for the robot

• One major factor of actuators is degrees of freedom

  • A Degree of Freedom is how motion can be made

  • 6 is the max amount of DOFs (3 are translational (x, y, z) 3 are rotational (roll, pitch, and yaw)

  • A car for example has 3 DOF, x, y and theta

• Locomotion and Manipulation, to move around and to move something else around respectively

• Gears are another important factor, the gear ratio often controls the speed and torque of a motor. An incorrect ration could blow a fuse or worse

• Sensors often relate to a physical property, for example rotation relates to gears, encoders and motors

• A simple sensor does not require processing, however a more complicated sensor requires processing, this create a time constraint

• A computer sensor presents data and signals not states like the human brain, therefore programmers must put themselves in that position to understands the robots view point

• Design perception is important, because something that works is not always practical or sell able

• Sensor fusion refers to multiple sensors working in tandem. Just as in the human body uses all of it's sensors at once an effective robot needs to do the same
  

Summary of Computer Science:

• Code is a very important part of the robot which can control every aspect of it

• When writing code, you need to think about all possible situations. There could be a niche situation in which it doesn't work as intended

• It is important to insure to reference all of the motors and pin positions of the variables

• When there is a library, use it because it will probably work.

• Don't use else just bacause you are doing another if statement

• A computor only executes one part of code at a time

• Do not put any code after while true.