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Projects :: Catapult

Project Info:
This robot uses 3 motors, the light sensor, and 2 push sensors. 2 of the motors are used in the driving mechanism (which use a tank-like track system), and the third motor propels an object (with the help of the arm) at a target (a castle).

Materials:

• 3 motors
• 2 push sensors
• 1 light sensor
• counter weights
• elastic bands

Programs:

1. The first program will drive the robot until the light sensor reads that we have crossed a line on the playing field. Then, it will do a little driving around until it is aligned up for the bunker shot. Then, we press one of the push sensors to activate the arm and it throws the object hopefully into the bunker.
2. The second program allows us to control the robots position. We use one push sensor to turn the robot left, and the other to turn it right.
3. The last program allows us to just fire when we want to at the push of a button.

You probably noticed that there are only three programs. The software we use, Robolab, limits us to only three programs, which is unfortunate. If we had the other 2 slots (there are 5 slots in total), then we could better fine-toon our robots position (eg., program 1 would do the bunker shot, program 2 allows us to move left and right, program 3 would allow us to move forward and backword, and program 4 would allow us to shoot).

Object:
The object of this project is to launch objects at a castle and knock down targets (includes little men, a 'bunker shot', knocking down a 'horse carriage', taking out a flag, etc.). More information available on the Overview page.

How We Did:
We presented our robot on Friday March 11 (2005). Our first shot was supposed to be a bunker shot, but it missed. We did get it in on the second shot. Basically, we got a bunker shot, knocked over the flag, and knocked over two guards. So that came out to 125 points, divided by 10 is 12.5, plus our base mark of 80 = 92.5%.

Media:
Note: newer pictures should now appear near the end.
Pictures - pictures of the project
Movies - movies of the project
Overview - overview of project, from our class notes
Our Report - the 'report' we handed in, note that this is a .PDF document and requires a PDF viewer. This was roughly done using Open Office Export to PDF feature, and as such may contain some errors.