Alcohol Sensing RobotLead Programmer, Group Leader
This robot was a semester long project for my GE1111 Class. The robot had an initial goal to find a light source in a room (for the midterm) and then the robot had to find alcohol for the final project. These goals were accomplished utilizing photo-resistors as well as an alcohol sensor. Throughout this project I was the group leader as well as the lead programmer. I was able to program an algorithm where the robot oriented itself toward the light and then move toward the light until the readings decreased. At this point the robot would rescan the room and head toward the brightest point once again. When the reading reached a threshold the robot would stop and "celebrate". The alcohol proved to be a much more difficult task due to the nature of the sensor (only detects it at very close range, long time to decrease sensor level). We were able to use a sonar sensor to avoid obstacles. Initially we had hoped to utilize the sensor to go to any object and sense whether it was the alcohol or not. This idea ran into a problem: the other robots in the room would interfere with our motion if we were not all in sync. We attempted to get the robots in sync but due to a lack of cooperation, along with faulty sonar sensors we ended up needing to use a random search algorithm. This algorithm was still successful in most trials (our sensor kept being triggered at incorrect distances for a reason unknown to us, working some times and failing horribly other times.) The overall robot however was able to complete the necessary tasks. |