Introducing the Rotation Sensor and the Dual Differential
You probably discovered during Lab 4 that getting your robot to go straight using one motor for each side of the robot is a real challenge. For this lab you will repeat the entire process from lab 4, but you will do so by first constructing a robot with a dual differential.
A differential is a device common in many vehicles such as cars. It works by letting one motor apply power to both sides of the vehicle. Since our robots don't steer by moving the tires, they have to steer by applying different power to different sides of the robot. We can achieve this by making a dual differential system. One differential/motor pair will move both sides of the robot the same direction/amount. The second differential/motor pair will move the two sides equal amounts but in opposite directions - thus, you can turn.
In week one of this two week lab you will do nothing more than construct your robot. I suggest you construct a modified robot based on the dual differential robot built using the following directions prepared by Gary Mayer and Jerry Wienberg. You will not want to build this robot exactly as described since Gary robot was doing very different tasks. However, the instructions through roughly step 65 are pretty much what you want to do (the light sensor assembly isn't necessary). In a few places you will need to improvise since we don't have all of the pieces that Gary is using.
Repeat lab 3 given this new robot. I will award bonus points to the team that can get the most accurate results during our demo day on the 16th.
By the due date and time, submit the files:
ShapeTracer.javaAny additional files necessaryvia the electronic submission system. You will also need to prepare your documentation packet following the homework collection policies.