3.1.7

Construct and program a vehicle to be able to move forwards and backwards upon different time intervals.

Team Members: Austin Von Pohle, Austin Copp, Will Burroughs

Austin VP programmed the RoboPro software do the needed specifications of the assignment.

We all worked on construction of the vehicle from brainstorming the design of the vehicle, to implementing this design with the building materials and the wiring of the vehicle.

Will prepared the images for this blog post.

We ended up choosing to wire it parallel as opposed to in series. Since we wired it parallel, both motors see the same voltage, giving them equal strength.



Austin Von Pohle was the MVP his programming and construction skills were very valuable to completing the project.

The main problem was the construction of a vehicle that could go forwards and backwards but also does not go too far over the limit of the distance to be traveled. To complete this task we hardwired stop buttons that when the vehicle was moving back the back switch would be the first thing to hit the limit and therefore click the switch stopping the vehicle from moving in that direction.

Conclusion

1. What was the most difficult part of the problem?

2. List and describe two features that were not part of the design problem that could be added to improve your design.

1.       I think the most difficult part was wiring and programming the vehicle so that it could move easily and not get caught up in the wiring. We used the Bluetooth functions of the computer and Robo TX Controller to connect the programming to the controller wirelessly.

2.       The vehicle could use more energy from more motors or a battery pack; we had a little problem getting the vehicle to get to faster speeds this could be fixed with the addition of more energy sources. Also I think that we could have organized the layout of the vehicle a little better due to the fact that the wires are quite scrambled in various parts of the vehicle doing so would increase its visual appeal and prevent wires from breaking or getting disconnected/lost in the jumble.

Subprogram

We created a sub program that counted to 5. Then we made the main program with the counter so you could see the count but you only see the >5 symbol representing the counter program.

This is beneficail because it is a good way to organize and not have a giant program desplayed the whole time. This is especailly useful for those who are messy programers.