Project Summary

Our objective was to create a robot that could automatically fire snowballs at people without manual input from another human being. The current project state is an autonomous robot that utilizes a Kinect camera and a LIDAR to create a projection map of its field of vision, interfacing the two data streams to find people and determine their location. The robot then actuates a pan motor to align itself with the target, and then a catapult is armed and released to fire a snowball towards the target location. The robot can then automatically re-arm itself and begin looking to find the next target and fire again.

System Diagram

Three Python scripts, two Arduino microcontrollers, and a helper module are used to make Frost work. One Python script receives image inputs from the Kinect camera. A second Python script receives data from the Arduino attached to the LIDAR via serial connection. Both of these scripts then feed into a main script that collects the data from both modules and combines them using a helper module. The algorithm then makes a decision that is sent to the Arduino controlling the actuators on the launcher via serial connection to pan and launch the catapult towards the target.