Design Analysis Report

Group E: Lara El Said, Malek Helali, and Nicola CardenaEngineering Instructor: Dr. Beena AhmedEngineering Lab Instructor: Mr. Ali AlJaaniProject 4: Robo-writerEngineering 111 Spring 2015 Texas A&M University QatarDue date: 26th of May 2015

26 March 2015MEMORANDUMTo:Dr. Beena Ahmed, LecturerCC:Ali AlJaani, Technical Laboratory Coordinator; Liticia J. Salter, Senior Lecturer and Engineering Writing FellowFrom: Group E: Lara El Said, Malek Helali, and Nicola CardenaSubject: Robo-Writer design analysis report

In response to your Engineering 111 assignment, we are submitting this report which outlines the result of the Robo-Writer Robot as well as the components of the project.The main purpose of this project was to construct a robot that writes specific numbers of lines according to the color of the rectangles that it scans it. The robot was programmed using the RobotC program. The NXT that was connected to the robot received the commands from the code we wrote. At the end a video was recorded of the final result of our robot. The robots design was changed twice for accuracy and the final design was tested several times to improve the effectiveness of the robot and in order to fix the code for it to work on its best condition. We were satisfied with the final results which proved how our robot was effective. The several testing led to our team winning the first place in the competition which was held on the 19th of March, 2015.We hope that our results would please and satisfy you as well. We look forward to your assessment of our report. We would be pleased to hear your feedback as well as your comments on our report. In addition if you have any concerns or questions about our project we are always here to answer them.

iiAbstract:The objective of this project was to build an automated robot that writes lines by scanning the sequence of black and white rectangles. The rectangles present binary values that our robot should be able to convert these binary values into decimal number and write the number of lines that present these rectangles. After scanning the rectangles the robot is supposed to move forward then 90 degrees in order to write number of lines that correspond to the rectangles on an A4 paper. There were different options considered for the robots design.

Executive Summary:In order to build a robot that is able to write a specific numbers of lines according to the white and black rectangles that it scans, three different robot structure options were considered. The different options were considering the number of wheels to be used and how the wheels will be used. The first option was to build the robot to do normal steering like the car whether with two or four wheels. The second option was to build the robot like the tank with four wheels. The last option that was considered is to build the robot with only two wheel steering. The second option was found to be the best option regarding the balance, since the four wheels kept the robot balanced and also for the speed, while turning it was found that the four wheels is the fastest while turning. The two forth along with the two backward wheels were used for steering. When our final design was constructed the robot was programmed to move forward and turn 90 degrees as well as to scan the rectangles in order to write. The programming was done through RobotC. At the end the robot turned out to be successful after it performed all of the required tasks as accurately as possible.

iiiTable of ContentsTransmittal Memo ... iiAbstract and Executive Summary .... iii1.0 Introduction . 12.0 Construction of the robot .... 12.1Major Components of the Robots Design . 12.2Programming Movement and Writing.. 22.3 Flowchart Explaining the Programming .... 23.0 Performance of the Robo-Writer 33.1Competition Results 33.2 Performance in the Trials 33.3 How to Improve the Robots Performance ... 3Conclusion .... 3Follow up form ... 4Signed Kit Return Form 5

1.0 Introduction:

Robots is a mechanical agent that has sensors, power supplies, and other electrical systems that work together in order to achieve a certain task. The Robo-Writer helped in teaching how to program a robot to perform a specific task and also how to face any obstacles that might encounter in the future engineering working life.The report will illustrate the design of the teams robo-writer and its components as well as the program thats been used. The aim of this project is to build a robot that writes a specific number of lines according to the number of white and black rectangles that the robot will scan. To build the robot Lego kit was used that contained the NXT which is the device that holds the commands for the robot. The sensors as well as the motors were connected to the ports that the NXT had. The NXT has three ports for movement and four ports for the sensors, not all of the ports were used. The sensors that were provided are light sensor, sound sensor, ultra-sonic, and touch sensor. The light sensor was the only sensor used in this project to accomplish the task.

2.0 Construction of the robot:

The robots construction was divided into two stages first stage was the construction of the robots design and the second stage was coding the robot.

2.1 Major components of the robots design:

The major components of the teams robot are the following: The NXT brick: The NXT brick is what makes the robot to run. Since it has the program to give commands for the robot to perform. In other words the NXT brick is what connects the robot to the RobotC program. Motor A and B: Both motors A and B were connected to the wheels of the robot. Motor A was connected to the two front wheels and motor B to the two back wheels. These motors were used for movement and rotation. Motor C: Motor C was connected to the robots arm that was used for writing. Motor C moved the arm up and down in order for the robot to write and then later on stop writing. Light Sensor: The light sensor is the only sensor thats been used. The light sensor was used in order to scan the intensity of light of the rectangles for the robot to detect the color of the rectangles according to the threshold value, according to the color of the rectangles the robot would know the number of lines it needs to write.12.2 Programming movement and writing:

For the forward movement the function that was used is the motor function, the motor function was also used for the rotation part. In order to know the value of degrees for the robot to turn 90 testing was done until the exact value was found. To turn right the angle in the code is supposed to be 275 as to turn left the angle was found to be 255. As for the threshold value of the light sensor it was calculated to be 52. This value was found by calculating the average light sensor of the white and black. The threshold is used to detect the color of the rectangle whether it is black or white.

2.3 Flowchart Explaining the Programming:

The following flowchart presents the concept of the code used in RobotC program to run the robot according to the required tasks: 23.0 Performance of the Robo-Writer :

The Robo-Writer that our team built performed sufficiently by completing all of the required tasks as accurate as possible.

3.1 Competition Results:

The robot performed well on the competition. Before the competition the robots movement was tested in the computer labs and the ground was rough. As for the testing in the basement the robot turned out to be faster due to the smooth ground. As a result of the smooth track the robots rotation was performed easily. Only one problem occurred during the competition which is that the robot didnt exactly stop in the ending box. The robot completed all of the task successfully and wrote exactly the number of lines required. The good performance of the robot led to the team winning the first place in the competition.

3.2 Performance in the trials:

Each team was given two trials to run the robot. In the first trial the robot performed perfectly but as mentioned previously the robot didnt stop accurately in the place it was supposed to stop and another issue that was considered is the speed of the robot. Therefore we tried to improve the speed and the accuracy of the stopping and tested it off track before the second trial. It was found that if we put the motors at its maximum power then the robot wouldnt perform the tasks well. When the robot was tried for the second trial after returning the speed to normal, the perfect performed well and was accurate at the end.3.3 How to Improve the Robots Performance:

Although the robot performed well and the teams robot won the first place in the competition but there might improvement that helped the robot move faster. Considering other designs of the robot might have finished the required task in a less duration of time.Conclusion:At the end of the competition our teams robot won which is due to the several testing that was performed to improve the accuracy of the robot. The robot moved forward to scan the colors of the rectangle in order to classify the number of the lines that it wrote later. There were 3 motors used, 2 for the wheels and one for writing.345