Robotics Update #8 Self Driving Robot - Daniel Marsicano

The second half of the maze became a little harder due to lack of wood soft enough to cut, or too thin pieces if wood. The pieces that were thin were in fact too thin to hot glue them together. We decided to nail the too thin pieces in the borders using a nail and hammer. We are not done yet but almost done.

Robotics Update #7 Self Driving Robot - Daniel Marsicano

After testing the new robot we decided to build a maze for it to color detect and steer itself through it. We got old wood and sawed off the corners that we weren't going to use. And began hot gluing it together. The processes of sawing was long and energy consuming but satisfactory once completed. The final maze is made of two half's and this is the first completed half.

Robotics Update #6 Beginning New Robot - Daniel Marsicano

We are beginning a new robot. This robot is focused on having the ability to drive itself using color recognition for stopping and turning. The pieces needed for this robot, and the steps needed to create it are very few in number , which allowed us to finish it in one class period. The new robot had the same movement respond problem as the other one and axes orientation. We fixed the unresponsive issue but still do not know how to fix the orientation issue.

Robotics Update #5 Final Claw Robot Update - Daniel Marsicano

We have finished with the building process of the Vex Claw Robot Building. We have tested its grabbing capabilities, the accuracy of its arm, and the speed of its wheels. We can conclude many things from the whole process of building and testing this robot.

1) It is fairly easy to build.

2) The arm has a strong upwards movement but a weak grapple.

3) The movements of the arm are not bad precision wise, but the wheels movement system is very weak for precision movements.

4) The robots speed differs when moving. For forward movement the wheels rotate at 72 rpm, while turning they rotate at 137 rpm. Making it very slow when moving forward but very fats when turning.

In conclusion the robot is fairly easy to build and a good introduction to robotics.

Robotics Update #4 Claw Robot making the Robot Paint! - Daniel Marsicano

Robotics Update #3 Claw Robot Video of Testing Included- Daniel Marsicano

We began testing the robots claw capabilities. Starting by practicing how to drive it and operate the claw, was very easy. The level of skills required with a controller are very minimum but it is hard to understand how the orientation for the movement works. Here is a cool video that shows the claw robot trying to pick up Mr. Koss water bottle.

Robotics Update #2 Claw Robot - Daniel Marsicano

We encountered one issue after getting the robot to respond to our commands. The robots left joystick (which we programmed to control the robots movement) was responding in a manner we did not want. For example, for the robot to move forward you would push the joystick forward, right? Well in our robot it would cause the robot to rotate to the right. If you pushed the joystick towards you it should move back, right? No it rotated to the left. We concluded that the robots recognition axis was programmed with a front movement located at the left of the joystick (if the controller was facing towards you) and then this caused all other "axes" to be rotated one to the left.

We tried to solve the problem but seeing as we needed to open the controller we decided not to, and just worked with the controller as it was. We began testing the capabilities of our vex robot.

Robotics Update Claw Robot - Daniel Marsicano

We finished our first robot. The claw robot was a success. After about 2 class day of work we assembled the claw robot. Originally the robot was not responding to commands issued from the Vex Controller, which caused delays and made us have to re -configure the remote to properly respond. After re-configuring the Vex Controller we encountered one more issue, we will discuss it on the next blog...

Robotics By Daniel Marsicano

We began the robotics project today. It all began with two sets for the two robot possibilities. We decided to begin building the claw robot.

 The claw robot has the same movement capabilities as the other regular robot but  with and added claw that we can secure objects with and store them in the back. To begin building the robot we separate all our items into different sets, based on use, size, and reason we use them for.

Blog Self-hosted on Local Network

The server project that has been going on since the beginning of the semester could be considered half-way complete; however, the other side is far over the horizon. The blog is accessible within the school's network, but we have not customised it yet. Public access is the next step in our project.

The server for the blog is hosted on a Raspberry Pi 2. This credit-card sized computer has similar computing power to a late-2009 MacBook, but with only the essential peripherals. In this project only the USB and power ports have been useful.

One issue that was run into initially was the network connection. At first, the server was connected to the iMac's network connection via ethernet cable, but the issue was solved with a USB WiFi adaptor. Once we successfully set up the website with local access, the server was unplugged while running and has been giving an error since the accident. This issue is currently being solved by starting over because no other solutions worked.

In addition to the server, there is a radio project, a robot maze, and "buddy bench." The "buddy bench" is seeing the most interest. It seems to be just changing the colour of a bench, but its true colours may be revealed soon. The robot maze is also being worked on. At the moment, the robots are being programmed to follow the maze.