WALL-E

Overview

We will create a robot car that can sense the obstacle in its way and then avoid the obstacle. The robot will use a micro processor, motors and sensors to determine the position of an incoming object on its way and then accordingly adjust direction in order to avoid a crash. We can also test the maximum speed so that the car is able to respond to an obstacle suddenly appearing in its way. If everything goes well, we may even create an App that can control the robot car. Our motivation for this project is to learn about some of the applications of autonomous cars and to build off a previous groups project.

Team Members

Daniel Sullivan, Novi Wang

Objectives

A successful project will at the end be an autonomous vehicle controlled by an Arduino. This means the distance sensor is clearly sending information back to the Arduino to detect obstacles. Both the motor and blue tooth shields are connected and working with the driver codes to be written. At the end of the semester we will demonstrate our project by putting the vehicle on the ground and letting it run around the room. It should manage to avoid all the tables and chairs.

Challenges

The main challenges are building, connecting and sorting all the electronics together, learning how to program in Arduino and how to communicate between the robot and our phone using Bluetooth, creating an App and IOS or Android programming language. We will spend extra time on exploring how to program in Arduino by looking at tutorials. We will also have to learn more on how to connect the motor shield, Bluetooth shield, and learn how to read basic circuit diagrams.

For privacy considerations we will make sure to constantly monitor the robot to make sure the robot doesn't go into any rooms unattended. For user safety, along with carefully watching the robot to make sure it doesn't crash we will also add bright caution tape to make sure no one steps on it. We will look into setting a pass code for blue tooth connection to prevent malicious attacks and take over. To keep the operation cost below 150 dollars the robot will be kept small. This robot is electric and leaves a small carbon footprint.

Budget

• Arduino Uno R3, supplied by class (Link)
  • The Arduino is used to control the robot

• Arduino Motor Shield R3, for $33.01 at Amazon (Link)
  • Motor shield will control the two motors on the robot

• 5 sensors: HC-SR04, for $6.59 at Amazon. (Link)
  • The sensor will measure distance between the robot and objects

• BT2S Bluetooth to Serial Slave, for $14.95 at Amazon. (Bluetooth Shield is better) (Link) (Link)
  • We are considering using a Bluetooth shield for our remote connections

• microtivity IB401, for $8.66 at Amazon. (Link)
  • Breadboard, pin, jumper wires for connections

• Batteries, for 9.98 (Link)
  • Battery is used for power resource

• Magician Chassis, for $30 at Amazon. (Link)
  • The robot car basis model

Gantt Chart