RC
Car &
Robot
Skills Used
Project Management, Design, Communication, Project scheduling, SolidWorks, Time Management, Manufacturing, Product Development, Arduino, C, Team leadership, Circuit Management, Soldering
This was a unique, two-part project where my team and I got the opportunity to produce both an RC car and an RC robot. The first half of the project was centered around designing, and making, the RC car, while the second half of the project utilized the skills we learned, in the first half, for the construction of an RC robot. Ultimately, the robot we made was used for our final exam: a battle robot, capture the flag competition.
Goal
Create an RC Car, and using the knowledge gained while building the car, create an RC Robot.
A Snapshot Of The Project
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Managed a team of 2, and ensured project deliverables were being complete on time.
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Strategized the development of the robot and allocated work.
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Quickly iterated and redesigned key features of the project to ensure project completion.
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Used Arduino (a derivative of C) to code main functions of the robot.
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Effectively and meticulously troubleshooted an electrical issue that was plaguing our project.
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Quickly learned electrical engineering skills to complete the project.
Journey to Success
My team's first task was to create an RC car and a controller. We wanted to go for a simple design, so we started by procuring a simple metal base, adding wheels, 3D printing the purple casing, and wiring the electronics. For the controller, we wanted to do something that was easily recognizable, so we worked with a design that was similar in appearance to the Nintendo Switch (with the caveat of a microcontroller in the middle instead of a screen).
Once we completed the construction of the RC Car and the controller, we were able to progress to the RC Robot-Capture the flag portion of our project. We decided to maintain some main elements of our previous car design in the base, but major changes were needed to fit the parameters laid out by our professor.
For the RC Robot we needed easier access to the circuit boards. Additionally, we needed to add an extra battery for our whisker switch (which acted as a device to record hits from other teams’ robots), the LEDs (which acted as our health bar), and an attack mechanism. With these new additions we had to abandon the sleek purple casing form our RC car and go for an open design instead.
Result
My team received first place in our robot capture the flag wars.
The Tasks That I Undertook
I think our team's biggest struggle was with the electronics portion of the project. All of us had plenty of skill designing, manufacturing, and coding, but we didn’t have much experience in the electrical engineering portion. I took ownership of this portion of our project, and I met with teaching assistants to fill the gaps in my knowledge. I struggled, but prevailed, with getting our circuit board working after many hours of trouble shooting and strategizing to make a better, easier to use circuit board.
Along with the work I did in creating our circuit boards, I also created key parts of the code to control our robot’s interactions for our professor’s capture the flag game. This meant linking with the professor’s receiver, setting up our device’s whisker switches and LEDs and ensure that each action our robot made fell within the rules of the game. (Example rules: the robot shuts down for x amount of time after its health hits zero. The robot’s position must be read by a receiver.)
Along with my engineering duties, I worked as our project manager. I worked to organize our tasks and strategize how to deal with any potential issues. This included allocating work for my group members, working on a strategy to ensure we were using our time and skills as efficiently as possible, and ensuring the proper safety measures were being taken.
Lessons Learned Along The Way
In addition to this accomplishment, I was able to improve my coding skills and deepen my understanding of Arduino. This project gave me yet another opportunity to bring a product to life from the ideation phase, while letting me refine both my communication and leadership skills.
