Define the Problem
The goal of this project is to design a fully functioning device out of VEX materials that will position a cookie on a device and move it into a position so that a dropper can place a chocolate chip on it. It then should move the cookie to another position when finished.
Generate Concepts
My Pseudocode ^
Actual Code:
key: 1-5, 1 being the best
Develop the Solution
I started brainstorming at home because we were short on time. I thought that the best way to make this was to replicate conveyor belts and use motors to turn them to get the cookies from place to place. I drew my idea and then brought it in to school the next day and we just built it as similar to the picture as we could and made changes on the way. I wrote the pseudocode at home based on my flow chart, and I had about 5 minutes to actually program it which I just did based on the pseudocode.
Construct and Test the Prototype
Evaluate the Solution
Our main problem was time. We completed this project in two days. It would have been ideal to have at least twice the amount of time that we had. This was caused by computer problems that we were having when doing the practice problems. We didn't really have much trouble with building, it just took us a while. We decided not to use a ramp for the cookies to go down once completed because we weren't sure how to do this. Instead, we built a little box for them to fall into, which ended up being too small. We then had not much time at all to program, so we ended up not using the sonar. My plan was to use the sonar to sense the presense of the cookie, stop the cookie, and drop the chocolate chip. I didn't think about the possibility that the sonar would detect the belt instead or the metal across from it. We didn't have enough time to change the height of the sonar or the distance, so we just had the motors move and then wait for a determined time that we found to work well.
Present
Conclusion
For the coding we used an infinite loop, which is a feature that we learned earlier. Other than that, we just used simple start motor, stop motor, and wait commands. The most surprising element of the project was the coding, although they were both straightforward and simple, the code was shorter than I expected, but it also didn't work how I had planned. I'd say that the most difficult part was the building, just because it took so long and also there was a lot that I couldn't do or was hard for me because of my wrist. To improve our design, we could have added a platform where the cookies would sit before they entered the conveyor belt. There could be another motor here and a piston of some sort to push each cookie on to the belt at the correct time. This would make it so that the time when the cookie stops and the chip drops will be aligned perfectly. Another optimization would be to make a bigger basket for the cookies to fall into. Most of the cookies were too big for the little basket and bounced out.