The date is: Fri Jan 29 16:59:59 MST 1999 This week we have done most of the preliminary design and descisions. We've decided to use the matched pair sensors and which type of wheel base we want to use. We've also decided how many sensors we're going to use and which ports we're using. Next week, we hope to design some of the sensor layouts and make some printed boards. We'll also put together our wheel base. The date is: Tue Feb 9 16:18:00 MST 1999 This is my weekly report for 2/1-2/5. This week we tested the remote control sensor for wall following. It turns out that our design for the amplifier doesn't work well. However, since we are depending on the gp2d12 we're not too worried about it. Ben and I have looked through the data sheets for the h-bridge and have a basic design for the wiring of the h-bridge. We have also acquired a phototransistor for the fire sensor and hope to have a simple design for it done by next week. We have also tested the motor for the correct running frequency. We figure that 500Hz will work well. Next week we are going to work on the PWM using altera and mess with the d12 a little. We are also going to try to learn how to make footprints for our boards using either protel or MSIM pcboards. The date is: Fri Feb 12 00:01:13 MST 1999 This week was very productive. We were able to get an outline for our presentation. We divided the presentation into 4 parts: Chassis(ME), Block diagram (Ben H.), Sensor array (Ryan), and Motor control (Ben S.) We have also tested out the gp2d12s and have decided that we really like them. Our robot will have 3 wall sensors, two on the side and one in front. The two Bens have also been working diligently on the PWM and have the basic design done. Ryan and I have been trying to use MSim to make footprints for the h-bridge. After we've done that, we'll try to layout the rest of the board. However, MSim has been giving us some problems with saving the attributes (pin holes, text, etc) with the foot prints. I might try to use Protel during the weekend. Ryan has made a castor using a simple spring like design for the base Next week we will continue to make a layout for the board and hopefully build it. The pwm will be farther ahead and we will start working on the wall following. We will also practice and give our presentation on our robot design. The date is: Sun Feb 21 23:02:37 MST 1999 Sorry this is late. This last week all that I really worked on for junior design was the presentation. I made the slides for my part of the presentation including the pictures. We also got together to practice a few times and critiqued each other. On thursday, we gave our presentation. We have also made a caster wheel for the back of the platform.( This last week had a lot of tests so I wasn't able to do that much.) Next week, we will start some HC11 programming dealing with the sensors. I think that the two Ben's are going to work with Altera to get the PWM to two chips. I will try to work with Protel 98 with Ryan. Hopefully we will have our own footprints by the end of the week. The date is: Thu Feb 25 17:58:09 MST 1999 Weekly report for 2/26 This was a very productive week for us. We were able to make a platform for our sensors is the middle of the board. We have also made a caster wheel( that will support the overall weight) for the wheel platform. Ben S. has also been able to reduce the PWM to 48 logic cells and thus be able to make it onto one device. Ben H. was able etch our first board; the line sensor board. We have also designed the sensor board and hope to etch it soon. We've ordered some parts as well: frequency to voltage converters, and dip sockets for the H-bridge. Next week we will hopefully design a altera board and be able to etch that. We will also test our sensor board and place it onto the platform. We are also going to look at some motors and test them out for the fan. Since we were not able to start programming for the HC11 this week, hopefully we will be able to start next week. The date is: Thu Mar 4 18:18:21 MST 1999 Weekly report for 3/3 We went into production mode this week. B.S. was able to get the PWM working in real life and not just in the simulation. Ben H. was working on producing working pcboards. At first he forgot to mirror the Altera board so he had to do it again. Thankfully he was able to realize the mistake before we soldered to the board. Ryan was searching for a suitable flame sensor. He's ordered some plausible parts.I was working on the frequency to voltage converter. I was able to figure some values and what the max frequency was. Next week we're going to test out the boards and make sensor board. We will then place them on then platform to see if they will work or not. The prelim. hc11 progamming is in the works right now and we will continue to work on that next week. The date is: Fri Mar 12 16:00:54 MST 1999 This was a week of good and bad results. On tuesday, we were able to make a beautiful sensor board and solder all the components to that. We had also tested the altera/h-bridge board with a o-scope and found that that worked beautifully. We were kind of worried about a flame sensor but were able to work one out with both a photo-transistor and a photo-diode. We also made a switch and fuse for the battery. But on thursday, our big problem hit us in the face. We hooked up the altera/h-bridge board to the motors and everything stopped working. The motor would not increment speed like the hc11 was telling it to do. The wheels would switch polarity for no reason. The dc/dc converter was getting really hot. We were dumbfounded. Tests later showed that both the altera chip and h-bridges had gone bad. The altera had a discontious node and so we have been unable to reprogram it. The h-bridge's direction bit doesn't work at all (although we never tested its functionality). So we're gonna be working on fixing those over the break. Next week, we'll be trying to fix the board and also test out the sensor board. We are waiting on connectors before we test it out though. We are also going to work out the wall following program for the hc11 and see if we can have a rolling chassis that can navigate through the hallways of the maze. The date is: Fri Apr 2 15:33:22 MST 1999 This is the report for 3/29-4/2 This was a work week for us. We were waiting for the f-v converters and another battery. After we got those we had to make another connector and cable for it. This took us all of thursday to do. On friday we connected the robot to the battery and found some problems. This is not good. We can get one motor to work but they do not work together. Hopefully we will be able to solve this problem during the weekend. This weekend we will be working a lot. This next week will be working out bugs and finishing up the code. Hopefully we'll be wall following during this week. The date is: Fri Apr 9 12:15:55 MDT 1999 Weekly report for 4/5-4/9 This week was very eventful. We spent 30-40hrs over the weekend trying to get the Altera PWM to work with both motors. After having no success, on tuesday we decided to use a HC12...but only for PWM. We couldn't find the problem for the altera and since we only had 2 more weeks until the national competition, we decided to go for the fastest and simplest way to fix our problem. It only took one night to get the Hc12 to work with the hc11 to control both the motors. The next day we were able to get the proportional part of closed loop control down. On thursday, we had a basic wall following scheme working, although we still did have some oscillations (we'll be working on that over the weekend) going too far, then too close to the wall and so on. But we're gonna add a integral controller to the wall following algorithm and hopefully it will work well. We've also been working on a tone detector, but since we haven't got the chips in yet there hasn't been much progress in that department. Since we've gotten PWM to work, our group's progress has advanced exponentially. This is mostly due to Ben H.'s brilliant control theory knowledge, and Ben S.'s programming know-how. The date is: Fri Apr 23 12:06:12 MDT 1999 This is my report for 4/19-4/23 This was hell week. We went to the National competion(4/16-4/20) and had an adventure (or and ordeal depending on how you look at it). On the thursday before we left we pulled an all nighter to get Jerry working correctly. After that we boarded the plane to get to Rhode Island. All went well until we went to get our rental car. We had reserved a 8-passenger van to hold us, but when we went to get it, the dang place didn't have one for us. So after talking to the rest of the rental car places and waiting 2-3 hrs we finally got a big SUV and a Neon. We finally reached our destination at 2:00am when we were supposed to get there by 10:00pm. The next day we went to Trinity college, where the competion was held, to practice. When we got there we found that our fire sensors and line sensors were acting crazy because of the ambient lighting, we were getting 60Hz noise coming from them. So we tried to fix the darn line sensor first. The line sensor was having problems seeing white lines. We tried to give it an constant ambient source by taping a small flashlight to the chassis and shining it in front of the line sensor. This seemed to work well. We were able to run our room routine with no problems. We then focused on our fire sensors. It turns out that the lights in the gym were giving us crazy IR readings. First we had tried to change the sensitivity of our wide range sensor by replacing the resistor with smaller values. This seemed to work well but we then determined that we wouldn't be able to see very far into the room with the new sensitivity. About this time we were really frustrated and wanted to get back to the hotel,(it was 9:15). Our group finally left at 10:00 and ate. After getting back to the hotel at 11:00, we decided to just get a qualifying run first off the next morning. So we rigged the robot to always see a candle in the first room and put it out. The next thing that we determined was that we needed another fire sensing algorithm. Since we now couldn't see the candle from the doorway, we needed to go in the room and search for it. We stayed up again that night and rewrote the program. The next morning we were able to qualify relatively fast and were testing our new algoritm. This new program didn't work very well and we were testing it all the way until the competition started. After that it all went downhill. On our first run, the candle was placed in the island room, we knew that the new program couldn't get to it. But we let it go anyway, but what happened was unexpected. The robot went into the first room and did its fire search, it then went forward a little bit and started trying to blow out a phantom candle. This was very disapointing. We then went about tweaking the damn thing for another 2hrs and went on our second run. This time the candle was placed in the small room in the corner. We thought that it might have been able to get to it. When we set it down, the robot went to the first room and left it with no problem. In the second room, it searched, turned to go out, and hit the wall and never recovered. At this point we were really frustrated, but we presevered and worked a little more. On our third run, the candle was placed in the fourth room. But I knew where it was going to go there before I put Jerry down. All that I had to do was turn Jerry 90 degrees and it would have left wall followed into that room and found the candle and put it out. Alas, I didn't think of this and put it in the normal position. Jerry went to the first room and went kaput. This was a horrible day. So we left Hartford the next day thinking that all of our troubles were behind us. This was not the case. The next day we get to the RI airport and board the plane at 9:30. The crew was giving us crap about the robots not fitting under the chair. So after about 10min of arguing we finally relent and let them put it under the aircraft. 5min later the pilot comes by and tell us the "computers" have to come off the plane, and we have the choice of getting off with it or leaving it to ship on the next flight. So I decide that I'm not leaving Jerry there all alone and volunteer to get off. After a few seconds of contemplation Ben also decides to get off with me. We get off of the plane to get our robot, but not only do they take the robots off, but they also take out all the luggage that we had put on. So Ben and I are stuck with seven bags between the two of us. We go and talk to the clerk and he tells us that we're going to miss our connecting flight from NY to Dallas and the only thing that he can do is give us a 2:40 flight from RI to NY and connect us from NY to Alb. at 5:30. We would arrrive in Alb. at 10:08pm, 6hrs later than we were supposed to. After hearing this we were really mad. So we argued with the supervisor and were able to get on a 11:20am flight to NY. Dr. Bruder and Dr. Wedeward had waited for us there and sent the rest of the group back. We waited until 5:30 at NY for our flight to alb. After getting on that plane there were no more hitches. The only thing was that we got back to Socorro at 12:00am. This was a long and arduous trip for us. But I wouldn't give it up for anything. We calculated that we slept 18hrs over 6 days (including 2 all-nighters). But thanks to the company of the people on the trip, it made it all worth it. The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. We went in the next day and made sure that the robot made the jouney successfully. Then we left. The date is: Fri Apr 30 13:56:54 MDT 1999 This was a very slow week for us. We've pretty much gotten every thing done by now. We were trying to get back to the home circle but have had no success so far. But we still have one more day. We're also working on our presentation and have that all wrapped up. Next week we'll work on our paper. I've gotten my part almost done. The date is: Fri May 7 14:13:52 MDT 1999 This week we didn't do very much. We won the competition over the weekend, we were able to make Jerry return home for 3 out of the 4 rooms. We passed the final review with flying colors (98/100). We're now working on the paper, i've almost finished my section I just need to add some figures. That is it for EE382 Junior Design for me. Signing off for the last time, this is David Tu.