Our PBL Project

Introduction:

 Our PBL project is based on the idea of efficient use of energy. This includes, but is not limited to potential power needed to lift objects, the speed/thrust needed to move swiftly and safely goods, efficient and timely delivery, and easier commute. This season, FIRST® ENERGIZE℠ presented by Qualcomm, FIRST teams have to reimagine the future of sustainable energy and power their ideas forward. This year the field is filled with towering poles of short bumpers at every part of the map; the efficiency of a robot compared with its size will be a contributing factor to success. 

Driving Question: 

How can we eliminate the constraints of limited space while being the most efficient with our energy?

Safety:

As with anything you have to be safe when dealing with this project. Some safety tips include:

1. Be careful around sharp objects

2. Clean up items and pack up correctly

3. Keep item in the best condition possible

4. Have a separate tool box and make sure all objects are safe

5. Where safety gloves when dealing with tight grip

6. Make sure your robot is in the correct place

7. Make sure the wires are properly managed

8. Reduce the stripped screws and wires that you have

Observations:

Throughout the first half of the season we were tasked with the job of making a robot that was able to complete this year's challenge effectively. Two key observations we made were the differences in the wheels and the relative size of the chassis.

• For starters there we two key wheels that we were honing in on this year: GTO/All Terrain(No Treks or Chain version) and the omnidirectional mecanum wheels. The reason being is that this year the map was crowded, far more than last year, and there weren't huge amounts of free points like the carousel. This meant that we needed wheels that would be proficient in going speedy when need be and accurate when need be.

  • • • • • • GTO (All Terrain) wheels gave us much-needed speed but lacked agility and maneuverability. Moreover, even with the tremendous speed, it became something that was too hard to control (due to the rubber enclosing the wheel). However, even with all of its faults, its speed was undeniable which is one of the main reasons we considered this option.

            • Mecanum wheels gave us a tremendous amount of agility and combined with the strafing the entire field was easily accessible. Although not as fast as the GTO wheels, it gave us a boost in speed when we required it and due to not being overly speedy it was relatively easy to control. Furthermore, the wheels allowed us to open our future robot into the world of cycling, which is basically doing as much as you possibly can(max speed, power, etc) in 1:15(minute: seconds)

• In order to perfect movement, our team needs to construct an effective arrangement, in other words, a chassis. In our design, we decided to utilize 4 mecanum wheels. This allowed us to further bolster the accessibility of the field, which we believed to be an important factor in this year's challenge. Furthermore, unlike last year, for which we had a 17'' by 14'' by 12''(l by w by h)(in.), this year we decided that we have to have a more box-like structure in which the length and the width would not surpass 15 inches. However, this being the case we decided to go even smaller with our robot dimensions coming in at around 13'' by 13'' by 17''. This opened the strafing game for us and allowed us to cycle more effectively and efficiently.

Analysis:

• We found that out of all the combinations there was really only one that had all the advantages that we wanted. A short, small, yet sturdy, chassis with mecanum wheels. These wheels would be powered by the gear system created by unique pieces known as bevel gears. This would allow the robot to look clean while changing the rotational energy that it produced by the motors to give a better more clear output.

Conclusion: 

The different wheels, systems, chassis, and tools for picking up items all help with the main objective, the effective use of power and energy, we have found that using different combinations of how big the chassis is and what wheels it has, has a huge impact on cycling and practicality. For speed, we found that having a small chassis and mecanum wheels was an efficient way of transporting shipment but for more utility, we decided to modify the width and length of the attachment.

Application and Further Research: 

• Application:

The robots have real world application with cargo and shipment transportation as well as power and efficient use of it, they reduce barriers by interconnecting all the counties by globalized economy. countries can nor efficiently transport good without constants problems hindering it. Furthermore, people are able to access good easier and better than before as transportation eases the need for increased prices thus reducing the fluctuation of prices. 

• Further Research:

The robot can be improved by researching more attachments for picking up cones, researching different combinations of wheels, track and gear systems to make the robot fasters but still able to maneuver around a convoluted map quickly. More creative metods can be creasted once we analyze the aspects of the cone. For example, we can grab it from the top through the opening. This would give us a more opena and clear access to grabbing it cleanly.

Essential understanding:

Understanding basic robotic principles such as center of mass, torque, and weight: students can use these principles in building their robot and they can use them in real world problems..

Hands on experience with robot parts from GOBILDA and electric components such as mother boards: students could use this to potentially to manufacture metal parts and custom parts for personal projects and later on.

Exposure to the field of robotics: Understanding of the role of engineering and robotics and how it can be applied towards ones career choice.

Learn how iterate in the design process: Students can learn the engineering process and how to think 3 dimensionally in order to solve real worlds problems.

Investigation Questions:

1- What are the requirements for building a FTC robot?

In order to compete in FTC Competition the robot has to be inside an 18x18x18 inches. Use only FTC regulated parts.

2- How does FTC work?

First Tech Challenge is an Robotics Competition, which used to promote Stem learning, which may be an object, a text description, and so on. We can perform many tasks using the OpenCV library such as face detection, face recognition, blob detection, edge detection, image filter, template matching, etc. To work with the OpenCV, we need to install it in our Python environment.

3- How does the Process for the Robot building? 

The main process during the project was importing the library items to the engineering platform, I used Scrum Methodology, and later building the robot. For the building we used an array of parts and sensors to build a competition robot. Later we created a chassis which would strafe and have a better movement. 

4- How does the software/code identify april tags? 

We will use the haar cascade classifier in this project. Haar-cascade classifier is an Object Detection Algorithm used to identify faces in an image or a real-time video. The algorithm uses edge or line detection features proposed by Viola and Jones in their research paper “Rapid Object Detection using a Boosted Cascade of Simple Features” published in 2001. The algorithm is given a lot of positive images consisting of faces, and a lot of negative images not consisting of any face to train on them. The model created from this training is available at the OpenCV