Joe Wong’s Blog

The aim of the intelligent robotics module was to create an autonomous robot which performed a set task. We decided upon the rubbish collection task.

The main chasis was constructed using Lego. To perform the sensing and thus enable us to perform intelligent processing we were given the following discrete components: sensors, motors, servo motors, shaft encoders, LED’s and LDR’s which all connected into an intellibrain board.

Before the components could be integrated into a prototype they had to be characterised, i.e. we had to find out how they worked and how reliable they were. We also had the challenge of desgning a robot and guessing (as we had no real previous experience) where each component should go. We came to the final design (below) through several stages of prototyping.

The final design was done in MLCAD (Mike’s Lego CAD), it doesn’t include the components however it does give a good approximation of our final design.

The following are a few pictures from the canal walk to university, thought they’d be nice to post.

It’s a very nice walk on a dry day but still doable on a rainy day.

This Thursday I saw the 9th annual Vale fireworks display which was put on by the University of Birmingham. It was an enjoyable 20 mins display with a view I’ve not seen for quite a while, definitely well worth it.

Update:

Pictures from the event:

My new team HCI project blog can be found here. Our aim is to design a product for students new to University. We will document our progress (or currently lack of :P).

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