This week we made a lot of progress as a team. Although nothing huge happened, we each made progress in our areas that made the whole project progress. In terms of building the robot, we were able to acquire the wood and find some time to cut it. Now that we have the cut pieces, all we need to do is assemble the frame for the ramp and wheel mechanism. In terms of the robot motion, we now have a robot that can move on command in the direction that we want it to. The motion is very granular and we should be able to make the robot move in a targeted direction. Finally, in terms of the computer vision, we were able to test the algorithm outside and tune the parameters such that the ball detection in various lighting is no longer an issue.
As a team, we met up once this week to update each other on the progress that we had made individually and also work on the design report. We will continue to work on the design report this weekend and finish it up.
Schedule Update
We are now at the stage where we need to start integrating some of individual contributions to this project. The computer vision and the iRobot motion are at a point where they can be combined. We are still mostly on track with our planned schedule. We hope to pick up the pace on building the arms of the robot to ensure we don’t fall behind. One possible risk that could occur is that the entire ramp and wheel contraption doesn’t work in sucking up tennis balls. Hopefully we can get to the testing phase of that part of the project soon so that we can fine tune the ball pick up system.