Inspiration
The reason we decided to embark upon this project is because we are a level student who are thinking of applying to either computer science or engineering at universities. Therefore, taking part in this challenge allows us to truly explore which avenue we would enjoy and something to add to our personal statements.
Furthermore, problem solving and seeing your ideas come to life is truly a riveting experience. Therefore, we also took part to solve problems and develop skills that will ensure our success in the future.
Why mercanum wheels?
We choose mercanum wheels because it allows for omnidirectional movement and this manoeuvrability allows for the robot perform better in challenges such as the obstacles course and minesweeper. We also envision that it would perform incredibly well in the pi noon challenge and would be extremely hard for the other robot to make contact.
Why we choose a chassis kit?
We choose a simple 4wd mercanum wheeled chassis because our team did not have enough experience with CAD and 3d printing. Furthermore, the two layer to mount components was extremely appealing to us.
Sensors
For the lava palaver challenge we decided to opt for the cytron maker line since the documentation on it was quite detailed. The calibration was also relatively straightforward as all you had to do was to press a button and move the sensor left and right over the line. Finally, the price was also very reasonable and similar quality line sensors were much higher in cost. Therefore, the quality to cost ratio was extremely large and unmatched for our needs.
We initially started with the pi camera 3. However, it had very little support online and the picamera 2 library was very new and was only in the beta stage of development. Therefore, we later ordered the v2.1 so that we could get a live feed of the front view of the robot.
