Chapter 9 and 10: Feedback and Wait for it!

Our homework of the long weekend was to read and blog about chapter 9 and 10.
The two previous classes we were working with the sound sensors, recording the vales that came up on the NXT from the sound sensor, of the different beeps that we heard. After we completed the tasks we had to graph our results in a Google doc the Google docs aren’t bad the only thing is that the internet is so slow here it slows us down sometimes when using them.
Chapter 9 was about configuring sensors, some of the sensors that were talked about were the NXT touch, RIS Touch, NXT sound, NXT light, RIS light.
The first sensors are going to detect the change in a condition. The types of conditions very it can change form light sound and more. Second sensors blocks are only able to do one condition at a time
The sound sensor is a sensor that detects sound, the light sensor is a sensor that detects light, the ultrasonic sensor can detect how far something is, and the rotation sensor is the number of rotation that is in the program.
The next chapter we talked about the wait block how to program it and all. There is also the time wait block the wait blocks are one of the most important things in the program that you will use, I also learned this the hard way when we did the last challenge I forgot to use a wait block and it messed my robot up when trying to run the program it didn’t do what I wanted one wheal would go then the other they both had to go at the same time though. You are going to use this blocks for the values of the robot its distance and everything.

chapter 6

Chapter 6 was pretty much about building strategies. How to build with the extra support so that the robot will be more stable in when the robot is performing tasks? Building a robot is like building a car, in a car you need a support structure or the car will just fall a part same with a robot. When first built my robot the first time at the beginning of the term I had this same problem I though it was a good idea to put some extension axles were the wheels went and then they both started to bend when I had to put the NXT on the robot because of how much the NXT weighed, also during the last challenges I had to change the location of the NXT and how a placed it. Another thing to think of when building the robot is to separate the left and right drive assemblies you can not just use one axel for the wheels because when you only want one motor to run both wheels are still going to move but one want them to run on there own. Stud less beams are great for support to. The NXT needed to be to be centered so that the robot won't lift up on either side.

Tracktor Pull

The tractor pull was pretty much like the drag rack in a way so I didn't have to spend as much time preparing as i did for the drag race also I didn't have as much time to prepare for this challenge, but I managed to get it done working on it until 11 the night before the the challenge. Again I went without the gear train the reasons for this was I was spending to much time on it and also started to run out of the gears that i want to use on the robot. So I went with the same design as last time with some changes I took the wheel off the front of the robot, but kept that 3rd motor on 1 it gave the robot more horsepower and also made it look big and bad. On my first trail I pulled 4000 grams then for the 2nd trail I pulled 6000 grams I would have went for 7 or 8 for barging right but I didn't have the space. overall I think I learned a lot in this challenge I must say this was one of my favorite challenges so far. The gears that I used were a 16 tooth gear on the motor and a 40 tooth gear on the wheels. The gear ratio that I used as stated before with the gears I used. The ratio was 16/40=2/5.

drag race blog

The other day we had our drag race, this was the challenge that I have been looking forwarded to since the start of the class.But the other had preparing for this challenge was not a walk in the park preparing for this task was very stressful, manly because i spent most of my weekend preparing for it. I started by trying to build a gear train but that was to much work and it was not working, so in the long run I went without the gear train, but geared my robot for speed I used a 40tooth gear on the motor and a 8 tooth gear on the wheel. I decided to use a 3rd motor on my robot so that I could have some more horsepower on in. I Did make some other small changes to my robot that was mainly adding beams and longer axles
On challenge day everything was ready to go when we did our runs to make it far we all put sound sensors on our robot so they would take off at the same time. We also used a speaker that was in the class room and played some metallica for the start. The robots were to fast to get an accurate time with did kinda suck so it turned out that I came in second. The gear ratio that I used as stated before with the gears I used. The ratio was 40/8=5.

google doc

http://spreadsheets.google.com/a/iskl.edu.my/ccc?key=pD-IgeS0SdGFwiUB_ImOFTA

chapter 2 blog

Chapter 2 pretty much starts by giving us the layout of gears. What are they? Well we all know what gears are.
The next thing we talk about in this chapter is teeth counting to the number of teeth on the gears. Also if you have to different gear it does matter if you were you but the gears like if you but the bigger gear on the motor and the smaller gear on the wheel axle the robot will move faster but on the other hand if you but put it on the opposite way the robot will move slower, the reason that the robot will move faster it the gears are installed the first way is because it’s able to turn the wheel more times.
We also talked about gear train and gear ratios. Gear train gives you a lot of power, mainly because you trade the same velocity as you do torque. Gear ratios are important because everything needs to fit in right you can’t have any gear slippage because then you can mess you’re gears up and the Axel or anything else up on the robot.
There was also the clutch gear which is used to help prevent damage on the robot when it started to exceed the limits. The clutch gear also automatically disengages the motor of the toque become to high.

chapter 2 blog