Reggae-Bot
(aka “The Jamaican Sensation”)
Kurt Adair
Seun Araromi
Sarah Murphy
Reggae-Bot was programmed by a group of three, Kurt Adair (ME), Sarah Murphy (IE) and Seun Araromi (ME). Reggae-Bot and its programmers have had their share of troubles through out the course of the semester, from the gripper that never wants to stay on for more than 20 seconds to the ‘kidnapped’ code that refused to be checked off. However, here we now stand at the end of the semester with a robot that completes the mechatronics course in a very respectable 34 seconds winning 3rd place in the robot competition.
Reggae-Bot is programmed to circle the starting point until
an IR sensor placed on the can gripper is triggered. The robot is programmed to navigate the
course by first looking for the LED’s in the center and then sides of the
course. It then navigates the west side of the course while collecting golf
balls along the way using the bobby pin cage! Depending on which of the side
LEDS were illuminated Reggae-Bot may need to x-y locate to the northeast IR
sensor before dropping the can in front of the pendulum LED. Reggae-Bot will
then navigate the east side of the course again collecting golf balls along the
way. Once five golf balls are collected Reggae-Bot is programmed to go to the
x-y location of the circular drop off point signifying the completion of the
course. Reggae- Bot is held together mainly by Velcro to prevent damage to its
vital components (such as the bobby pin ball collector) from damage if Reggae-
Bot happens to navigate into a wall.
Some of specialized functions used to help the robot complete the course were ‘goto_angle’ and ‘golfball_check’. The goto_angle function takes as parameters a desired compass angle and an angle tolerance and allows Reggae- Bot to turn to potential golf ball locations. Similarly to the Dan Blocks xy_location the function returns a one when Reggae- Bot is facing the desired angle within the specified tolerance. The function golfball_check then checks if a golf ball is present in the camera view. If a golfball is detected, its centroid is tracked and the golf ball collecting mechanism gathers the golf ball. If a golf ball is not present the function returns zero and Reggae-Bot looks for more balls in other locations. One of the shortcomings of these functions is that they do not allow Reggae-Bot to move forward while checking for golf balls.
The mechanical design of the gripper was based on an existing design where rubber bands are used to hold the can but remain flexible so that no damage occurs if something were hit. The design was modified for the competition to move the can up and to the left, out of the cameras view so that golf balls could be picked up while the can was being carried. The golf ball collection was a passive system that used bobby pins to form a one way door into a holding area under the front of the robot. This design was original to our group and we actually hid the mechanism for several weeks before noticing other groups with similar ideas and that the secret was out. The bobby pins still had some advantages over other one-way door mechanisms seen in the class. They were spaced close together and acted independently so that a golf ball could enter without risk of other balls escaping, also because they were light a golf ball could be picked up without the robot moving at a high rate of speed. Other designs required the robot to move fast so that the force required to open the door did not move the golfball. The robot also had a piece of cardboard above the camera however this was not used to stop the camera from seeing the overhead lights, the software cut out those rows, it was used to mount the ir sensors so that they did not get read by the camera as white lights.
We can all honestly say that this mechatronics course has been both a source of fulfillment and a bucket load of frustration, but we have persevered and learned some useful lessons along the way. We’d like to thank Dan block and his T.A’s Chris and Cristos (and Reggae-Bot of course) for their help and hard work!
Videos of Reggae-Bot in Action 1, 2.