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 the object on its way and then it can adjust the moving direction in order to avoid crash. We can test the maximum speed so that the car is able to respond to an obstacle suddenly appears 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.

Team Members

Daniel Sullivan, Novi Wang

Objectives

We will create an autonomous vehicle controlled by an Arduino. It has distance sensor so that the vehicle is able to detect the obstacles in the front. And then it can avoid the obstacles according to the position the sensor detect. At the end of the semester, we will demonstrate our project by putting the vehicle on the ground, and let it run around the room. It should successfully avoid all the tables and chair.

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. Also look at tutorials online on how to connect the motor shield, Bluetooth shield, and learn how to read basic circuit diagrams.

For privacry 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, currently $21.95 at Amazon [1]

• Arduino Motor Shield R3, for $33.01 at Amazon [2]

• HC-SR04, for $6.59 at Amazon. [3]

• BT2S Bluetooth to Serial Slave, for $14.95 at Amazon. (Bluetooth Shield is better) [4]

• microtivity IB401, for $8.66 at Amazon. [5]

• Amazon Basics USB 2.0 A-Male to B-Male Cable, 6 feet for $5.49 at Amazon. [6]

• Magician Chassis, for $25 at Amazon. [7]