Autonomous Motion Project/Competition

[TickTack]

Well, freshman engineering class calls for building a vehicle that will do laps of an 8 foot box in under 10 seconds each. The box has dimensions 8'x2' and you ust start your vehicle and it will do the rest. The vehicle must fit inside a 25cm cube. I've got a couple ideas including one that "rides' the wall the whole way. Anyone have ideas or completed something similar?

[Mercenaryend]

id love to help but i dont quite understand what your saying , canyou repeat what it has to do again in more depth?

[TickTack]

Sure. I must build a small vehicle that is able to go from one end of an 8x2 box to the other three times. Somehow reversing it's direction each time it reaches one end of the box. Laps basically. There must be no human intervention besides on and off. Better? Maybe I'll draw something up after class today that explains it better.

[Mercenaryend]

this is an odd requuest....hmm are there any kind of pwer requirments to fallow , or is it open minded anywhere on the power chart.?

[UncleAl]

Motive whatever with a probe coming out front and back. Tap the rear probe to the rear wall and it zooms forward. The front probe hits and it reverses. The back probe hits and it reverses. When the counter fills, it stops. Steering is left as an exercise for the alert reader. If it snugs to a wall it steers itself - two more side probes (with wheels).

[Pret]

-----Consider this. The object has 4 wheels. On the underside, it has a rotating fixture with small wheels able to rotate 360 deg and move smoothly in whichever direction force is applied(just like the ones you have under trolleys).
1)The fixture rotates(driven by a separate motor) when there's no motion(i.e. when the wheels stop rotating) turning the entire object, during which the motor driving the wheels continue to run.
2)The entire object turns and the wheels grind. This stops the underside fixture from rotating mechanically and it aligns itself to the direction of motion and thus does not hinder lateral motion.

-----This doesn't solve your purpose of reversing the direction of the object though. But solves the purpose of the object needing to lap around.

-----I'm sorry if i have not made myself sufficiently clear.

[TickTack]

Originally Posted by UncleAl

Motive whatever with a probe coming out front and back. Tap the rear probe to the rear wall and it zooms forward. The front probe hits and it reverses. The back probe hits and it reverses. When the counter fills, it stops. Steering is left as an exercise for the alert reader. If it snugs to a wall it steers itself - two more side probes (with wheels).

That was my orignial plan, a two way rocker switch for forward and backward. My other thoght was that if i drive the outside wheel a bit faster, it will hug the wall all the way around and with the right shape to the body, make the turns on it's own. Simple and potentially fast. Any other ideas? It doesn't have to stop automatically. Oh, I need to use the motors given, a small tayama or whatever gearbox.