PVIT Robotics

Project Description, Summary of meeting on Thursday, March 26

The general setup of Cooperative Cruise Control  consists of three remote controlled cars, two of which have eeePCs (extra small ASUS laptops) on them to recieve the information from the other cars via Bluetooth. The trailing cars will use sensing equipment to detect the path of the car in front of it.  Each car is also fitted with an Arduino micro controller which we will program to control it. The lead car will have only the Arduino and a Bluetooth transmitter (what type/make of transmitter  has yet to be determined) to send speed, steering, etc  information to the eeePC’s. The PCs will, in turn, relay the information to their respective Arduino controllers on the other two cars and adjust their paths to follow the front car. Also, each trailing car will use its sensing equipment to further ascertain exactly where the car it is following is going. In the end, we will have three cars moving seemelssly in a line. So far, we have made good progress towards making this idea a reality.

On Sunday, we purchased our second eeePC and third Traxxas E-Maxx remote controlled car. The pair of them, along with another Arduino board, will become the second following car in the line.

Today, we had a meeting after school to get in some extra hours of work. The progress on the conversion of the remote control cars is going smoothly for the most part. We were able to finish the job we started on Sunday of rewiring the lead car to control it with the Arduino programming, rather than the radio controller. We mounted the Arduino using foam and zip-ties (yes, it may seem slapped together, but it got the job done!) and ran the wires from the drive motors, steering motors, and radio controller through holes on the aluminum base to connect them to the Arduino. (pics are soon to come because we lacked a camera of sufficient megapixels to clearly show what’s going on). After a successful test of our ability to control the car by loading programming onto the Arduino (again, video soon to come), we ended the meeting Sunday. Today, our main objective was to figure out the configuration of the outputs of the radio controller so we could connect them to the Arduino and control the car manually or with programming. Once we found the values needed for controlling the motors on the car, we wrote a program that would allow for both Arduino and remote control. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and couldn’t test the code today.

Near the end of the meeting, we opened up the new E-Maxx and made sure it was functioning correctly (by that I mean we took it out to drift around on the blacktop…I MEAN checking to see that the speed and steering were accurate…yea that. haha). We look forward to hooking up the new eeePC to the new car and will hopefully have that done within the next week. From then on out, the name of the game is sensors. We’ll keep you updated as we progress, so keep checking in!

-Patrick

note: I am somewhat unclear on the types of sensors being used, so keep an eye out for a more professional description of the way we will be using sensors to aid in Coperative Cruise Control. I appreciate your understanding.

Welcome to PVIT Robotics!

Welcome to PVIT Robotics! We’re part of the Palos Verdes Institute of Technology Program at Palos Verdes High School in California. At PVIT, we investigate various different ways to apply math, science, and engineering in the real world. The Robotics Club started two years ago competing in the FIRST Vex Challenge. The team has since moved on to Cooperative Cruise Control. The aim of the project is to have multiple vehicles following each other. Through the use of sensors, cameras, bluetooth, and computers, we are investigating an interesting way to reduce traffic. The project is sponsored by the Lemelson-MIT Inventeams Program, and the team will be travelling to MIT in June to showcase the work they’ve done throughout the school year.

Following Boe-Bots

Today we were successful in making the Boe-Bots follow each other, rather than being totally synchronized (watch the other bluetooth video). The following Boe-Bot is two steps behind the leading Boe-Bot.

Bluetooth Boe-Bots

On February 16, 2009,  two Boe-Bots successfully communicated using Bluetooth modules. Watch the video below!

Video Boe-Bots

On January 19, 2009, a Boe-Bot followed a second Boe-Bot with the help of a CMUcam2. Check out the video below!