Egr100
Fall 1999
Ileana Streinu
Doreen Weinberger
Lab 6
A mini-project, from start to end
Based on your preliminary choice of a project (which could become
your final project), I have designed individual
mini-projects
for each team.
You will work on this mini-project two labs in a row (and the
week between :-)). By the end of this lab, you should have
completed the mechanical design and should have started the
programming part. By the end of next week's lab, your Lego robot
should work: this means that most of the experimentation and
testing would be done in the week between, and completed next
Thursday.
Format of the lab
- Each student gets the individual mini-project from Ileana.
- Spend 10 minutes reading and then ask questions: do you want
to do the project as assigned? Want a different one? Want to alter it
in minor ways? in significant ways?
- Once the project is chosen, spend 10 minutes writing a
time-table. Estimate how much time you plan to spend on all the
steps that you can now identify, such as:
- Discussion with your lab partner about the mechanical
design, choice of sensors, general strategy implemented by your robot.
- Discussion with your lab partner on what type and level of
programming might be needed.
- Actual mechanical design.
- How to test that the mechanical design is sound? Estimate how much
time you want to spend on this. Include an estimate on: what to
do if the design proved not to be sound. Do you have an alternate
plan?
- Programming.
- Testing and debugging.
- Taping the working robot.
- Documentation and picture taking.
- Unexpected problems.
- Sign up on Ileana's sheet for a time slot, in which to
explain what you do and ask questions.
- Do the work!
To turn in
To allow you more time for the actual mechanical design, I am not
asking for a web page lab report this week: only at the end, next
week. The short email report at the end of the lab is still
required, however.
However, I recommend that you do take pictures when the
mechanical design is ready, or at intermediate stages (if you
want to document a particularly interesting feature that might
not be clear when photographed in the context of the whole
finished robot).
Last updated Oct 14, 1999.
Ileana Streinu