We’ve recently reported on the Advanced Engineering I playground design project, but what exactly is keeping the younger group busy right now? If you pass by Room 401 most any afternoon, you’ll find twelve freshmen and sophomores, six computers, three VEX robotics sets, two T.A.s, and one teacher very hard at work! The project? It’s a little ambitious, but we are intending to design, build, and program three self-driving robot cars, in the manner of Google, Uber, Tesla, and a few others.
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| Just another typical day of class in the Providence Engineering Academy |
The way of the future! But first a bit of background. Robotic cars fall into two broad categories: smart cars and smart roads. Smart car systems have all of the design and engineering and intelligence in the car itself, relying on GPS, lots of sensors, and careful programming. By contrast, smart road systems have some sort of marker built into the road itself to provide information to the car–one idea proposed in the past was to have magnets embedded into the road surface. While all companies are now putting all of their efforts into the “smart car” option, ours fall into the “smart road” category; we have a white line track on a dark background that shows the car where it needs to go. No white line means no navigation.
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Left: the design brief and the plans for the roadway; right: the actual roadway,
newly constructed, mounted on an 8 foot by 8 foot plywood base
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So what does it take to get this going? The number one resource is human intelligence; each of the three teams comprises four students, with distinct roles as follows:
- Team Leader: co-ordinate efforts, give attention wherever needed, be an all-around expert in everything, and keep a daily Captain’s Log.
- Mechanical Engineer: primarily responsible for building the physical structure of the robot, mounting sensors, and attaching custom parts.
- Programmer: working on code that will navigate the robot around the course.
- CAD Specialist: design custom parts in a CAD program, and then print them out for use in actuality.
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| Ben (left) working on code; David (center) attaching his wheels to the frame |
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Samy, one of the mechanical engineers, putting together a frame for his
team’s vehicle
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One team’s container design, intended to hold a small payload; a door is going
to be added to keep things secure until delivery
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Another team’s payload device is an open tray which flips up to release
upon command; note the square axle hole for connection to the motor
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Both of the above designs are printed full size; so far, it looks like they will
be perfect!
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| LEGO Mindstorms coding language–colourful blocks that snap together! |
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RobotC coding language, as used by the high school students–lines
and lines of colour-coded text
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The LEGO robot car in action–note the three colour sensors in a bank on the
front; having three side-by-side allows for more sensitivity in response to the
car’s exact position
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