Long Beach Competition

World I would like to introduce you to SUNNY. Again. He competed Feb. 8, 2014 and I felt did awesome. We had two chances to get a better in the competition and sunny was not able to complete one, but he was really close the first time. He was able to get the the room and find the candle but his positioning was off and when he started the fan he was slightly off and not able to extinguish it. Sunny has a total of three sensors. 

First Sunny has a line sensor in his front side and the line sensor would let him know he was about to enter a room. Second is the Ultrasonic Sonar which is also in the front so that when he approached the candle he will know when to stop on continue advancing. Lastly Sunny has a Flame Sensor! Flame sensor is very cool and different from may other competitors, we placed the sensor on a servo motor and mounted it on the front of Sunny. Flame sensor detects heat and in our code we where able to find the angle from the servo and then have the bot position itself at the angle and proceed getting closer to it. 

Sunny has the smiley face next to it on the Competition score board.


The Following link if my partners page and she was able to get a video on this site

http://elect10mmiramontes.blogspot.com/

Programing the VEX (Maze)

World please say hello to SUNNY. He was our robot and very loved. He has two moms and even though he was a big head ache for two week his moms still love him. So Sunny has basic frame of the VEX squareBOT. While programing we created commands for sunny to go straight, right turns, left turns, scan, and backup. One of our assignments was to have sunny run a maze right outside of our classroom. We participated the the maze competition but were not satisfied with our outcomes so we kept working on the maze for an extra day. The following video is what we were able to accomplish after the maze competition. 

Ultrasonic Rangefinder & Flame Sensor

After creating the UltraSonic Sensors that we end up using in the competition, we decided to place the sensor in the front of "Sunny". We determined this position of the sensor because in our strategy of finding the candle. We needed a sensor determining how far away the candle is and how to move towards the candle without touching it. 

The UltraSonic Sensor was probably our most reliable and consistent sensor of them all. We had the least issues with it and its values it was putting out. The Ultrasonic Rangefinder measures distances using sound sonar. It sends out a pulse and hears an echo when the pulse bounces back to the bot.  

This is our flame sensor. I personally made this sensor and initially it was perfect and collected great data. We noticed as we started using Sunny that the Robot needed to endure tough handling. Unfortunately the flame sensor was one of our greatest issues. Since our flame sensor was nailed and taped on a servo it endure many movements. Ultimately our sensor worked properly with our code but or code need some modifications to get the BOT back to sensing moving towards and extinguishing.  

Using Analog (Analogue) Sensors

We are now using the LDR as the switch for the light. The Light Dependent Resistor measures the continuous signal of light in a room and outputs a voltage that has a numerical value of 0 to 255 (dark to bright). In this image the LDR is measuring the natural light in the room and sends the signal to turn on the LED light. 

In this second image the LDR if covered by my finger so no natural light is being collected by the LDR so it does not emit a voltage/ signal to turn on the light. So the LED light will remain off as long as I remain my finger on the LDR. I really enjoyed this lab and thought the sensor was very interesting. 

For the second experiment we placed two LED lights on the breadboard. So we are now able to be more specific on the natural light range and the unique indicators we enforced to know where the LDR was at. In this experiment I was able to get all four stages. Super bright with 2 lights on then Bright with green light on, then dim with red light on, and lastly dark with no LED light on. This image would be bright.

This image is of dim lighting in the room. 

This image is of super dark.

Introduction to Mr.Puggles (Video)

This is Mr. Puggles. I found him at Walmart for our toy hacking assignment. I cut him open and soldered extension to all his interior wiring. I was able to to identify his motor wires and utilize them with my Arduino. I got him to crawl on demand from my switch

Introduction: Microcontrollers, input and output

Introduction to Microcontrollers, which is very important because this fundamental skill will be used in programming on the Toy Hacking project along with the final long beach competition. In this project we used a push button connected to the Arduino and turn on the LED light with the push button. 

For this experiment it was the most important for the individual to know the differences between the inputs and outputs and how to identify them on the Arduino code or properly place in the Arduino itself. For our class we classified Inputs as microphone, infrared receiver, light dependent resistor, tile switch, and press switch. We also classified Outputers and the main three: Motors, LED light and Speaker. 

Introduction: Ohm's Law

In this introduction we reviewed Ohms Law and learned how to read symbols in a schematic. For our first Lab we tested the variety of resistors to LED lights and noticed that the smaller the resistor the brighter the light and it can be scientifically explain by V=IR as learned in our physics classes and Electronics classes at Mt.Sac. 

In this Experiment we actually played around with adjusting brightness in an LED Light. We used a potentiometer which is a "magic resistor". It worked like a dimmer dial which gradually changes the brightness in a light. Meaning the switch resembled the properties of a house hold dimmer switch. From a dim light as you turned the dial in one direction the light would get brighter.