Duckling

Link to Log

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Overview

There once was a time when children's toy cars would be bland and boring. A child might push the car and chase it, or use her own remote controller to move the car around, but no real fun was to had when the car couldn't move freely! We wish to fix this lack of fun by designing an entirely new kind of car-the kind of car that chases you! By integrating an xbox kinect, remote-controlled car, raspberry pi, and arduino, we plan to design a pi car so that its sensors (through the kinect camera) may evaluate a person's movement and follow them. The kinect will direct the car by communicating with the raspberry pi. All components will be mounted on top of the car to create one autonomous system that needs no outside influence, besides a person's movements, to direct its path.

Team Members

Patricia Collins

Tushar Menon

Matheus Camacho

Tony Sancho (TA)

Objectives

The duckling project will be deemed a success if

1. The duckling's pi car is constructed successfully according to the reference guide

2. The pi car is able to sense a red dot (or other comparable reference point) and move towards it

3. The raspberry pi successfully connects to an xbox kinect

4. The sensors can differentiate between the movements of a target person or object and other movements.

5. The duckling pi car will move according to information from the xbox kinect

6. The duckling pi car will use the xbox kinect to follow a person

Challenges

We expect our challenges to include:

1. Completing our project under budget

2. Learning how to use the raspberry pi and arduino

3. Interfacing the pi and arduino with one another

4. 3-D printing. No members have experience.

5. Getting the kinect to communicate with the raspberry pi

6. Working with the kinect image processing to sense a person

We also expect that we may have difficulty working on the project independently if we do not all have access to the pi car with the arduino and raspberry pi mounted on top. We plan to leave it in the lab in order to protect our project and promote inclusivity in access. We have no concerns regarding privacy, user safety, or security from malicious attacks.

Gantt Chart

Chart showing the project schedule vs. the different tasks that need to be solved. The Gantt chart should roughly indicate the contributions of each team member. See this link to wikipedia's Gantt Chart article for more information.

Budget

Dromida 1/18 Buggy($99)

ISC25 Rotary Encoder($40)

32GB MicroSD Card($13)

IMU 9DoF Sensor Stick($15)

Raspberry Pi Camera Module V2($30)

Brushed ESC Motor Speed Controller($6)

TowerPro SG90 Micro Servo($4)

TFMini - Micro LiDAR Module($40)

Arduino (free from lab)

Raspberry Pi (free)

Xbox kinect(Used) ($15)

Total: $262

Supplies purchased according to source: https://picar.readthedocs.io/en/latest/chapters/usage/mechanical.html#design