The date is: Sat Jan 30 23:31:05 MST 1999 This week, we decided to utilize a modified car-type drive powered by a single motor. Steering will be servo controlled both front and rear to produce a tight turning radius that will hopefully equal that of a differential drive. In the week to come, we will decide how to subdivide the different tasks and complete the chasis and drivetrain. I will produce a rudimentary logic flow-chart suggestion for the operation of our robot in order to more easily determine what type and quantity of parts we will be needing in the immediate future. The date is: Sun Feb 7 00:32:17 MST 1999 We successfully tested and logged the parameters of our motor control, and H-Bridge. We also finalized the general chasis layout for the first prototype of our drivetrain. A general top-down program design was also agreed upon, subject to change without notice. After completing the construction of a working chasis out of masonite, we will begin testing servo-controlled steering. By next week, we will also have decided upon a gear ratio for our differential, and will be able to test movement by radio control. The date is: Sat Feb 13 21:44:49 MST 1999 Preparing for our upcoming presentation, we accelerated the process of decision making for how various tasks will be acomplished and split up. A fatal flaw in our 'simple' candle searching algorithm was fixed. Most importantly, we need to make some final decisions on how to allocate the limited resources on the HC11 by using outboard A/D converters, and Atera for PWM control. The date is: Thu Feb 18 17:37:59 MST 1999 Out of necessity for an accurate design presentation and review, we completed a forecast of the steps and decisions for completion of the project. A second prototype chassis was also developed for first run experimentation. While this chassis is being refined, coding will start in both HC11 and Altera for Pulse width modulation. The date is: Fri Feb 26 02:25:08 MST 1999 Once our chasis was complete and our H-bridge and Servo were reverse engineered and mapped, we were able to complete our design forcast in time for presentation. Right on schedule, we're now embarking on a massive coding campaign that will quickly substantiate our method of progression. I mathematically modeled the non-linear response of the 2D12 sensor so that true distance can be accurately measured from the output voltage, and this weekend will put it to code in C (including manipulation of the A/D converter) as a function to be implemented dicrectly in our final HC11 program. The date is: Sun Mar 7 11:26:11 MST 1999 This week, Clint and I worked out the complete details of the top-down design of the entire HC11 algorithm in flow chart format, along with the sensor ratio equations that would allow the robot to know whether it was straight or slanted while wall following, the closed loop equations for steering and motor control, and priorities of crucial subroutines. I then converted the flowchart to C code, completing the main body of the robot's HC11 program. In the coming week, Clint and I will complete various functions, which should allow the robot to begin to physically wall follow by the weekend. I will also compete an amplifier/filter circuit that will send a 5v signal to the robot in response to a 3.5 KHz tone for commencement in the maze. The date is: Sun Mar 7 11:32:35 MST 1999 P.S. I will also re-write my function from last week so that it uses integer only math, instead of floating point with which the HC11 is inefficient. This means we will loose some resolution in our distance measurements, but it won't be a true loss since the sensor error is higher than the present resolution my function returns from the A/D converter. The date is: Sat Mar 13 01:20:56 MST 1999 After several revisions of the robot program flowchart and corresponding C program, I have now produced what Intel would call the Beta version of our main robot algorithm. By writing empty function calls, I'm hoping the program will be able to run successfully without the completion of all the subroutines and functions that will handle all of the different tasks later on. This means we will be able to test each new addition modularly with ease, or so the theory goes. Clint and I found a way to only use one interrupt in the entire program. This is important to us because of superstitious fears of multiple interrupts causing missed clues while the robot tries to solve the maze. While I worked mostly on the HC11 coding, Clint was busy getting the PWM functions to fit and work properly on the Altera chip, just barely fitting it in by making numerous subtle changes. John was able to turn our masonite nightmare into a solid, tightly working precision chasis, along with mounting the steering servo and modifying the front wheels to fit better. Saturday, Clint and I will meet to write the interrupt subroutine that will link the HC11 to the Altera chip, and handle all the bugs we expect to come crawling out. In the week to come, I will continue my work on a 3.5 KHz detection circuit (I had to learn how to set up an electret microphone so it would work in a circuit!), along with work on the fire sensor, and more interfacing (distance sensors). The date is: Fri Apr 2 02:36:48 MST 1999 Some glitches came up this week in our PWM that had been working fine for over three weeks. We suspect it is due to Altera's sensitivity to any type of noise, and its intollerance to the ringing e-clock signal coming from the HC11 (we had previously been using a function generator to provide the 2MHz clock signal). My attempts to interface wtih a small microphone of unknown type did not prove fruitful. It turned out not to be an electret mic, but just a very poor dynamic mic with very little sensitivity. In the meantime, I did get a chance to further trim down and simplify the algorithm outline for the main HC11 program. Also, I incorporated the declarations and register settings from Clint's test program that enable the PWM data to pass to the altera, and together we decided upon the convention to be used. This weekend, we hope to have our robot wall following. In addition, a tone sensor will be built using a headphone earpiece as its dynamic microphone (I've already tested it, and it works surprisingly well). Nate ordered a tone sensor which will hopefully be easy to integrate, but we'll see... The date is: Thu Apr 8 22:14:38 MDT 1999 Well, debugging has officially begun in earnest. While clint finished working on erradicating the odd intermittant glitches in the pwm train, I worked on the code in the hopes that it would seamlessly compile and interface on the first try. Stranger things have happened, but in this case it didn't. At this point, the HC11 and Altera are working in harmony after some hair pulling and code modification, but only in an open loop capacity. As circuits are put to printed boards by John, Clint and I are now working on ironing out the oddities that still haunt our motor control. Tomorrow morning, I'm buying a 6v zener diode from Albuquerque that Clint thinks will fix the remaining bugs in the pwm. We'll see tomorrow afternoon. With much catching up to do because of our peculiar problems, our schedule has been pushed off track by more than two weeks making our possibilty of late entry into the contest at Trinity slim. As soon as the circuit boards are completed and assembled, we will progress to testing our wall following while continuing to debug the closed loop motor control. The date is: Fri Apr 23 12:50:11 MDT 1999 This week saw the etching of our circuit boards and Clint has been busy with the subsequent soldering and connecting. There was not much for me to do, as from this point on the software tweaking will need to be done with the working robot as all of our subsystems are already running and closed loop is flawless. We're looking forward to our first baby steps through the maze sometime this weekend or next week at the latest. The date is: Sat May 1 23:05:45 MDT 1999 Well, we finally traced down the source of our most recent and most severe glitch that has caused our robot to be DOA. It turned out to be a blown decade divider and possibly the entire board it was on. The team pulled together quite well in the final stretch, but there just wasn't enough time to get our robot up and going by the competition. Quite a bit of our time was spent this week preparing for our presentation, but we still managed to get work done on the robot, troubleshooting and then etching and soldering the new board. Even though the competition is over, we are so close it would be a shame to stop now, so we'll be continuing our efforts this coming week to get Glitchy up and going. Like this weekly report, better late than never! The date is: Fri May 7 22:57:04 MDT 1999 Well, we finally got Glitchy back on his feet, and successfully wall followed on our first attempt. All that would be left to do if we had time would be to tune the white line sensor integration (already mounted and working), and mount the fire extinguisher and get Glitchy able to approach the candle. The group really pulled together well for the grueling last week, including presentation preparation. Now, we will try to accurately doccument our work, each of us writing the respective sections we spoke on in our presentation.