Attabotics Challenge

Background

Attabotics is a Calgary-based company that focuses on storage solutions, specifically vertical ones. Inspired by leaf-cutter ants and how they organize their colonies, their CEO has successfully built many iterations of their robots. Their robots use a combination of sensors to detect boxes they can bring down to a person, eliminating the need to run across a warehouse to collect items. 

Objective

This challenge's objective is to address the issue of sensors mistaking debris for boxes in their robots- leading to inefficiencies in the picking process. To tackle this problem, three sensors were chosen: 2 reed sensors (passive) and an LED sensor (passive). 

The reed sensors were selected to detect the presence of a magnetic field when a magnet comes near it. These sensors can accurately differentiate between a box and debris, as the box contained magnets where other objects did not. When the reed sensor detects a magnetic field, a red LED on the sensor turns on, indicating the presence of a box. The yellow LED on the Arduino UNO turned off due to a magnet being detected. 

Documented Code