Last year we had a big problem with our chosen camera, a specialized robotics camera made by Carnegie Mellon University. We could never get it to work outside, no matter the weather conditions. This year has barely started and we already have a fully functioning camera that can identify cones indoors and outdoors. We can successfully navigate to a cone using only directions such as “Go left”, “Go Right”, or “Go Straight”.
Additionally, we are slowly splitting up into small teams dedicated to a certain aspect of Robomagellan. Currently the teams are Sensors (Camera, sonar, touch), and Control (GPS, Movement, Main Coding). These groups will change (members are free to hop around between groups) but the split allows us to focus on a certain part of the robot until we need to integrate the systems. Last week, the control team began creating a control schematic that we will soon model in code and the sensor team tested the webcam’s capabilities.