Week 13 - Circuit Building/Testing, Audio, Code Polishing, and Visual Design.

 Week 13 - Circuit Building/Testing, Audio, Code Polishing, and Visual Design.

Circuit Building/Testing

Countless trial and errors have led me to a solution for the battery holder casing. I followed Ron's advice and printed out a sleeve and a proper scale for the holder of the battery, this all worked flawlessly and held the battery well. 

Ron demonstrated how the sleeve would work with the foam and copper tape which will act as a conductor to power the entire circuit. I tested the durability of the holder over and over, the battery worked as intended and I am happy with the outcome.

Failed Outcomes

I hooked up the battery to the entire circuit and it powers 12V's throughout the entire circuitry, with the Ultrasonic Sensor, MP3 Player, and Motors working fine. I've checked the power and the entire circuitry is able to accommodate more circuitry and parts which I plan to hopefully add in as time goes on.

Finally I plan to redo the entire track section by making my own brackets and holders for the tracks. By using wooden sticks that I've cut and fashioned together, this may take another week but I am willing to try it out and see the outcome.

Audio

I tried to integrate the audio for the past few weeks but to no avail, I eventually reflected upon it and double checked the entire code along with the circuitry. In the end the problem was actually caused by the example code itself, which falsely labeled the pins for the receiving and transmitting signal. After fixing this small problem the MP3 player worked for a small while.

A new problem appeared, the mp3 player only played audio once in a while before restarting itself continuously, due to my previous experiences with the circuitry I came to the theory that it was a power issue. To test this theory I fitted a power plug as a temporary power source to my circuitry and true enough it worked fine without any issues.

I've also managed to grab some audio files which I will incorporate into the robot design. The audio is free as long as I give credit to the owner, which can be found in the image below.

I have sliced the audio apart into its individual sound files to incorporate them into the design. The program I used to separate the audio was Adobe Audition.

Code Polishing

I spent additional time integrating the code together, and the results were more or less satisfactory for this stage. I've managed to get all parts to communicate with one another with no issues, I can move on to actually polishing more of the code and getting them to work such as behaviour of the robot.

Visual Design

Several sketches were made regarding the design of the robot which can be seen below. There are 2 versions that I have sketched, the first is more elaborate which contains a head with a servo and LED. If I do have enough time I will continue with that design, if not I will move on with the second design that is more simple and only has one part which is its body/head.

Sketches design 1.

Sketches for Design 2.

Self Reflection - Entire Project

This week has been great, I've managed to push myself to complete and solve a lot of necessary issues. The battery holder is a crude and simple design that works well after countless tries. Audio integration and problems have been fully solved and are in the process of being polished.

What I plan to do further down the road is to try to integrate more features such as a functioning head if I have the time, if not I can settle on a backup plan I have for the head which is an entire box body.

I'm worried about actually getting the whole visual done and durability of the project, therefore I will try to take additional evidence photos and videos are time goes on for this project.