Week 2, Day 2 – Movement and Drift – An Unexpectedly Challenging Task

Day 6 planned schedule:

• Run tutorial 2 (Move), Demo 1, where the first demo program uses the wheel DC motors to move car in a straight line. Challenge: program car to go straight for 25 ft, turn right, move straight, turn right again, and come back. Caveat, turn should be made around a cardboard box and all movements are pre-programmed.
• Run tutorial 2 (Move), Demo 3 where the gyro corrects the drift to keep the angle of movement constant.
• Run tutorial 3 (track), demos 1 and 2. Follow a taped path on the floor. Challenge: improve the time of the default program.

Tutorial 2, demo 1 was straightforward of course. The demo 1 challenge, however, proved unexpectedly hard. Without a built-in gyro, the cars did not move in a straight line and in fact would slightly change the way they drifted at every successive run. Furthermore, the speed of the car was not always the same, making it hard to program the car to go 25 feet. One of the teams managed the feat of circumventing the target card box and returning the car to the starting position through a pre-programmed maneuver, but everyone else struggled.

Tutorial 2, demo 3 showed the class how useful a gyro can be. The car moved in a straight line and recovered even if nudged out of its intended direction.

Tutorial 3, demo 2 worked well on tracking. However, it was difficult to improve the program by correcting the angle faster on any tracking error, or by increasing the speed of movement. However, increasing the speed of movement slightly gave the best results.

Next: week 2, day 3.