TEAM MEMBER: WILLIAM CHALLENGE: TIDY UP THE TOYS When looking at the challenge, we see we have a couple things we need to add to our robot (apart from actual movement)
1. Grab blocks/push blocks
2. Hold blocks (ensuring they don't drop off when we move them)
3. Place blocks on top of each other (and ensure that they don't fall), however this is optional.
1. Grabbing or pushing blocks
To approach this, I would be thinking of some sort of grabber arm. To keep things simple, I propose a sweeping arm. We would be able to attach this onto the right of the robot.
Now, if the blocks didn't need to be in any order, we could just sweep from the right to the left of the field. This would allow us to get the blocks side by side and then we could place this permutation of blocks into the box.
However, we need to find a way to get the blocks in the order of Red, Green, Blue.
Now, if we could somehow move the red block to the left of the green block, we could potentially continue with our method, by reverting back to the original method of sweeping all the blocks with one sweep, and then placing them into the box with another sweep. Alternatively, we could try and get the green block to the right of the red block, meaning that we could also do the sweeping.
The latter seems much easier, since...
We have an L shaped arm which moves the block back and right (image 1)
We then move this arm up with a motor, and then move the robot back so that when the arm goes back down, it will be behind the block, ready to push it. (image 2)
Finally, we are able to use the sweeping method to scoop the blocks. (image 3)
2. Holding or securing blocks
We need to, once we have the blocks all in place, find a way to secure them.
With another L shaped arm, we could potentially get all the blocks right next to each other. We could also attempt to add an attachment to the top of the right arm, which, when we have the blocks in place, would move down and secure the blocks.
I would need to do some testing with making the 90 degree turn, but I would be pretty confident the securing arm at the top should be able to hold it.
3. Stacking
With the current proposal, stacking would not be an option. I think it is too complicated to worry about for now, and since point values are not given, I would rather stick to pushing them side by side.
Summary:
- Two robot arms, one on the left, one on the right
- The left arm will be an L shaped arm.
- It will pull the green block back, then to the right (image 1)
- Once it gets between the red and blue blocks, the arm will move up, the robot will move back
- The arm will then be in position to push the green block between the red and blue block (image 2)
- The right arm will also be an L shaped arm.
- It will have some sort of "securing" mechanism to secure the blocks once they go into the arm
- We will place the blocks into the arm, secure them, and then transport them to the box. (image 3)