Period 2-Prototyping and Testing for Robot Refinement
Aspects of the robot system that we used prototyping and testing to improve:
- For the CBC
- The blocker arm
- The base
- For the Roomba
- The windturbine collecter
- The Botguy collecter
The blocker arm-The blocker arm’s goal is to block the opponent’s scoring areas in the slope and the peak. The blocker arm is attached to the back of the CBC, and the long arm is meant to overextend from one side of the CBC to create an actual barrier. The problem with the blocker arm was that the metal handle bars were much heavier on one side than the other side so it was tilted. This made it especially difficult when the CBC was moving over the elevated base because the weight of the blocker would case the CBC to lose balance, fall off the base and flip over. The testing procedures involved revising the blocker arm and the base, and having the CBC move over the elevated base until it could successfully move across the elevated base and over the pipe without losing balance. A solution we devised was to add extra weight to one end of the blocker arm to counter the other heavier end of the arm in order to balance the weight so it would not throw the CBC off balance. After testing this improvement, the CBC did not flip over as quickly, but it still did flip over. This made us realize that another improvement had to be added. On the heavier end of the blocking arm, we removed weight and added a support that resembled a sled that could support the entire blocking arm and CBC in case the CBC started to lose balance. We learned from testing that it is important for weight on different sides of the robot to remain balanced and that we need as much support as possible. These improvements convinced us to make some similar improvements to the base.
The base-The base is an elevated structure that helps our CBC move over the pipes. We needed to test and revise the base so that it could successfully carry the CBC over the pipes with the new blocking arm and increased weight on the CBC. Initial testing proved that the base needed to be strengthened because it was bending under the increased weight of the CBC. So we added metal bars to the base and extra axels through holes to make it sturdier. Also, further testing the base showed that CBC was still losing its balance even when improvements were made to the CBC’s blocking arm. We realized that the base itself was too narrow and had to be extended laterally in order to be just as wide as the CBC was with the blocking arm. Final testing showed that the CBC finally balanced perfectly with the revised base. We learned that if we were to make changes to the CBC or Roomba, we often would also need to change other supporting aspects of the playing field.
The windturbine collector-Initial testing of the windturbine collector showed that having the Roomba collect windtubines with 1 windturbine already inside the collector deteriorates the performance and restricts space inside the collector. We increased the side of the collector so it could hold more windturbines without becoming short of space. However, we tested this idea and increasing the size of the collector only made the mechanism loose and clumsy. We devised the idea of adding a separate small cavity at the end of the windturbine collector that would hold the initial windturbine we would have. This eliminated the need to increase the size of the entire windturbine collector. When we tested this, this small cavity proved that it could secure the initial windturbine very well while the collector itself could collect windturbine very efficiently. We learned that increasing the size of aspects of the robot can actually make it less efficient.
The Botguy collector-The Botguy collector proved to be loose and clumsy during testing. Its function is to compress capture Botguy by compressing him between 2 metal bars and thus securing him without the need of an extra cavity space to put Botguy once captured. We bolted the metal bars comprising the Botguy collector to make it tighter. We also decreased the length of one bar that was too long and increased the length of the other bar that was to short, in order to improve efficiency and performance. After testing this improved version, the new Botguy collector proved to be sturdier because it stopped shaking, and it never dropped Botguy once captured. This improvement taught us that making the collecting mechanisms lighter, as we did previously, actually makes them frail and clumsier.