Robot+Executive+Summary

=Robot Design and Challenge Missions Information=

At the competition we will have 4 minutes to give an "executive summary" to the judges about our robot, the programming, and its performance. This is not expected to be a "polished" performance like our research presentation, but we do want to give the judges a good idea of all of our hard work and thinking. Some of this work we will be able to do together at our final meetings, but please add any information you can on your own time to help us use our time efficiently.

Pollution Reversal (Blue) Viruses Contamination Risk (far northeast) Distance Travel Pizza/Ice Cream
 * ‍ ****__Design Details __**
 * ‍1) Strategy: Explain your team’s strategy for accomplishing missions. Briefly describe the reasons behind why you attempt the missions that you do, their order, and in general your robot’s rate of success completing them. Talk about your favorite mission and why it is your favorite. **
 * We chose to do the pollution reversal first because it was on the way to the other missions that we wanted to do. We decided to have it follow the line using a light sensor because it is more accurate than last year when we tried to line the robot up. We used the touch sensor to help it stop.
 * We next used the touch sensor to have the viruses dumped into the sink using the conveyor belt. Although, we were able to make this work, upon careful reading of the missions, we realized that viruses could not start in the base.
 * After leaving the sink, we chose to go to the pizza and ice cream missions. After several weeks of working on precise turns, we realized that our robot was too wide for our original attachment (claw) and/or the rake-touch attachment. We made the decision to instead work on the contamination risk nearest to the sink (northeast corner) as a backup.
 * We were successful with dumping the bacteria as part of the contamination risk.
 * After realizing that the conveyor belt could not be used for the viruses, we worked on using it with the groceries.
 * In addition, we wanted to add turns and possibly dump the purple contamination rick bacteria
 * Our favorite mission was the sink (even though it legally was not a mission). We learned the most in terms of programming and sensors from attempted missions.


 * ‍2) Design Process: Describe how your team designed your robot to execute your strategy, how you tested and made improvements to the design over time, and discuss any defined processes you used. Describe briefly how different team members contributed to the design and how you incorporated ideas from all. **
 * We learned very quickly that we wanted to focus on a few key missions that we could do reasonably. When making design and program changes, we also learned quickly to only make one small change at a time and to tell/discuss with all members of the group whenever a change was made. We decided that 10x working in a row for any change was considered successful. We conducted tests in groups of 10 to monitor our success rate (i.e., out of 10). All members contributed through the use of discussions, tests, and assigned jobs and/or groups
 * ‍3) Innovation: Describe any features of your robot design that you feel are special, different, or especially cool. **
 * The conveyor belt is especially cool because it moves and is unique. Hooking up the conveyor belt to the robot was particularly difficult because we couldn't get it straight with where the motor was.
 * ‍4) Mechanical Design: Describe your robot’s basic structure, how you make sure your robot is durable, how you make it easy to repair or add/remove attachments, how it moves (drivetrain), and any attachments and mechanisms it uses to complete missions or operate. **
 * We spent a great deal of time discussing treads vs. wheels and 3 vs. 4 wheels. We chose the wheels because the treads made the robot wider and seem to require a lot of energy (Battery) and there were concerns about how quickly the treads would wear out. We chose the two wheels and the rotating wheel in the back of the robot in hopes that the robot would turn more easily as we noticed that there were a lot of tight turns in many of the missions. Adding on the sensors was difficult because we wanted to keep them centered and yet had to work around the motors and the conveyor belt. We realized our robot was getting quick long and wide. With all of these attachments, durability was an issue and we had a sensor and a wheel fall off, forcing us to rebuild and better secure these pieces.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">*Saved each changed under a different program name so old programs/decisions could be revisited later*Saved attachments and built new ones, rather than taking apart old attachments so we could refer back to old designs/decisions if needed*Having learned last year not to rely only on distance and rotations, we used both the light and touch sensors to build more reliability into our programs and missions
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18px;">‍5. Programming: Describe features of your programs that ensure consistent results, how your code is documented and modularized and ways your programs use sensors to know (and ensure) the location of the robot on the field. **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">‍*Used our 10x rule for confidence in changes **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18px;">‍6. Fun: Describe the most fun or interesting aspect of robot design. Describe the mission(s) your team found most challenging, the robot’s name and origin of the name, or any fun story your team has about your robot that you would like to share. **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">We found the pizza and ice cream missions the most challenging because of the difficulty of moving the pieces and precisely moving the robot around the corners.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">The most fun or interesting aspect of our robot design is the conveyor belt. It works and is fun to watch.