Troubleshooting Motor Issues.
After finding and solving various other bugs in coding and electrical, something about turning on the motors would affect what the IR sensors sensed, and would trigger the ultrasonic sensors at any time. To fix that, we tried a variety of things including changing code, changing circuitry, completely separating motor and sensor code and Arduinos, and making everything was perfectly grounded. Finally with the help of an oscilloscope, we learned that we needed pull up resistor and capacitor to help filter out the IR signals such that the motor affected it less. There are still issues, but we worked with multiple professors a lot, had them and NINJAs review code and wiring, and it seems that there is no good solution as of now. Once the IR was mostly fixed, we encountered a new problem of everything turning on or off randomly.
Making our Robot Easily Rechargeable.
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Originally we wanted to create a rechargeable battery using eight rechargeable nickel metal hydride batteries, connecting it in a circuit with a switch and a charging port. However, due to the limitations of the batteries only being able to hold take in 5 volts only, it would be impossible to charge all eight batteries at once. As an alternative, we purchased a 12 volt lead acid battery, a 12 volt battery charge, and female nylon spade connectors. We modified the charger to be attached to an insert charger that would be used for plugging in to the battery. The battery is attached to a switch and the charging port, where the switch will be used to turn the current off and on to the arduino, and the port will be connected to the insert charger when we need to charge the battery. In the back of the cart, we put an opening for the port in order to plug in the charger. Depicted on the right is the charging port (black).
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Aesthetics.
One of our goals was to create a product that was aesthetically pleasing. We went through a couple rounds of ideation on how to do this, before making the decision to use a combination of hardboard and spray paint, due to its low price and lightweight quality.
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