Friday, April 23, 2010

Week 13 Thoughts

What I learned:

Use others as a resource. Stacy and I started our AUV this week a little behind everyone else, but the good thing about that is that we got to see what works and what doesn't it terms of constructing the AUV. Some of the other groups ran in to some problems with things and we were able to avoid these mistakes by talking with them and Jim to figure out an alternative solution. This has definitely helped us catch up to everyone else.

What got me excited:

Building the AUV. Stacy and I are flying through it. We have everything set up, basically the only thing left to do is finish wiring two of the motors then mount them and test it all out. I'm sure after testing we are going to run into problems but so far so good! I was very worried that we wouldn't have enough time to complete the project but I now think that we are going to be able to get everything working in time. I'm definitely pretty proud of what we have done so far.

Suggestions:

Like I mentioned above it has really helped us to communicate with other groups to figure out what works and what doesn't. I think in the future it is important to encourage all of the groups to help each other out with this. Kevin's group and Sam's group have kind of been competing throughout this project and both of them have run into problems. Stacy and I are open to working with anyone and so far it is working well for us. Just something I have noticed.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Week 12 Thoughts

What I learned:

Stick to the basics to start. When I programmed my robot for the line runner challenge I was building the program for the standard slow moving crawler bot that we used for all of the learning exercises. As soon as I finished the program and the bot was doing the line runner challenge successfully I got all excited to start building a fast robot to try to get a good time for the challenge. Emmanuel suggested I complete the challenge with the slow robot first while I knew everything was working just in case I ran into any problems trying it with the fast robot. It is a good thing he told me to do that because after trying to build a fast robot to do it I had to spend a great deal of time fixing the timing of the program because the fast robot reacted differently with the lines. It was a good reminder to not get ahead of myself and take things one at a time.

What got me excited:

For all of this class so far I have enjoyed working by myself on the projects. Most of the things we have done in class I have never done before so it is especially rewarding when I complete them all on my own. That being said, I am very excited to work on the underwater submersible with Stacy. I was a little wary about having a go and the underwater ROV but now that I know Stacy and I are going to work together on it I think we will be able to do it. Should be fun.

Suggestions:

Can't think of much but I'm sure things will come up once we start work on the ROV.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Week 11 thoughts (sorry I was out of town)

Missed class on Thursday because I was out of town for an internship so not much has changed since last weeks post. Sorry for the late blog, didn't have internet till I got back from Florida on Sunday.

What I learned:

Have to make sure I manage my time well. End of the semester is sneaking up fast and I'm barely done with one project so I have to make sure I'm staying focused and chugging through from here on out. The robotics is going good, it just takes a while so I'm going to start coming in extra to get some more work done outside of class.

What got me excited:

Basically finishing up the first project. Hopefully I can compete for fastest time for the line runner challenge, I've got everything working how I want finally so we'll see how it goes.

Suggestions:

Can't really think of anything else that could change right now.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Week 10 thoughts

What I learned:

Not to get ahead of myself. As I began working on the first project (basketball drill) I began trying to write the entire program all at once and then test it out. Obviously that was stupid. After doing something like that anytime something went wrong in a test it would be difficult to figure out where exactly the problem was. I learned to slow down and take things step by step, building each piece of the program at once then testing to make sure it worked. Only after I had made sure everything was working fine did I move on to continue developing the program.

What got me excited:

Starting the first project. Finally got going on it and it really pumped me up to start doing everything completely on my own as opposed to basing programs off of what was in the tutorials. I also am getting ready to build a robot to go with the first challenge, so I'm excited to try to make one that can maximize its speed and hopefully do well in the basketball drill challenge.




Suggestions for future:

Can't think of much at the moment but one of the things that I really like about the projects we are doing is that there is a bit of a competition with everyone else to see whos robot is most efficient. I like seeing the fastest times and stuff up on the board because it motivates me to try to develop my program to work as best as possible. Definitely something that should be kept as part of the projects for the future.