Our robot design was relatively simple for the task at hand. We designed a motor controlled claw with a funnel in front of it that mounted on the front of our robot that could open and close around a bottle or ball on command. Along with this claw, we also employed several different sensors to enable our robot to preform better. By mounting an ultrasonic sensor at the end of the funnel, our robot could detect when the bottle/ball was close enough that the claw could close around it. We also used a color sensor to detect when our robot passed over certain colored lines so that the robot knew when to preform certain tasks. Along with our sensors, we also used a pocket laser pointer to line our robot up before it went after a bottle.

My groups code was relatively unsophisticated and required more human intervention than ideal; however, it fit the criteria and got the job done. Every time our robot returned to its starting zone, we were allowed to run new codes on our robot. Knowing this, we coded our robot with one code to drive straight, pick up a bottle, and return back. from there, we would run a variety of other codes to manually turn our robot and line our laser pointer up with the next target.

During our final performance, our robot was able to amass a respectable 35 points by grabbing four bottles and one ball. Our robot could have kept going and potentially received even more points; however, we ran out of time due to our rather cumbersome coding strategy.

In conclusion, I was happy with how my groups robot preformed. Our robot design was extremely effective and our code worked well. If I were to repeat this project in the future, however, I would change my approach to gathering all the bottles/balls to one where I try to go for multiple at once instead of one at a time.