D HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> Hay-Zoos' Strategy
Me Want Brains...





that's me



So I was locked, stocked, and fully loaded with a whopping nine phototransisters coupled with eleven LEDs, two sets of breakbeam sensors used for shaft encoding on my drive wheels, two bump sensors on my front (you see four in the picture but that is because two were not used in the final strategy), a very sweet IR Beacon, two rotary potentiometers, and last but not least, my actuators, three servos and two motors.
Now what, you may ask, did I do with all this stuff? Well, my phototransistors where used for color sensing in different forms; nine to line follow and locate my position on the board, and two to determine the colors of the balls I was holding in my hands. My bump sensors in the front told me when to stop when I had reached the top of the playing field, and my shaft encoders helped me to drive straight. My actuators powered my wheels and hands. All in all, with those servos I had several degrees of freedom. :-)
So basically I would orient myself on the board, make the appropriate turn depending on the side of the board I was on, and line follow up to the top of the field. Once there I would stop, lower my hands and try to color check the balls. If I felt that I did not have a strong enough grasp of the balls (which is to say my color sensors saw nothing), I would wiggle around in an attempt to find them. If I had a ball (or two) in my hands that I liked and wanted to keep, I would travel backwords down the playing field, holding whichever balls I wanted to retain, until I saw the color divide on the second tier, which signaled my stop. If the first two balls where both the opponents, then I would back up to the next two balls and follow a similar algorithm. As I backed up down the field, I would constantly check to ensure that I was still holding the ball(s) I wanted. If I was not, I would envoke my wiggle algorithm and hopefully save my ball(s). If you want to see my code check it out!





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webpage © Jennifer L. Fecanin, web mistress extraordinaire 2003