Fire Fighting Production

Here, you can see that my partner JJ and myself used the optical shaft encoders on the front wheels along the outer side walls of the chassis. In addition to the modification, there is also electric tape around the wheels. The purpose of the electric tape is to decrease the friction from the total amount of grip, at the same time balance out the slippage and dragging of the wheels to a more consistent state. This allowed the encoders to read more accurate values and also in being able to make more accurate turning.




Here is a picture of two Infrared Sensors used to detect the flame. Inside the electric tape is a 20k resistor which helped control the reading the IR sensor is collecting from a light source and allowing the programmer to use a more accurate and reliable reading to let the computer know that there is an actual flame inside. The values we kept as standard fluctuated around 289 and 320. Anything higher than these values would imply that there is a flame nearby for the sensors to detect.




This is the sonar sensor we used on Pat-J Jr. The sonar is ideally used to help navigate around tight spaces such as hallways and navigating out of the rooms. The efficiency of using the sonar dramatically improves the response as well as the ability to leave a room. The sonar pings sounds to a distance and receives the signal again and is then able to determine the distance away (inches) by the judging the time in which the waves of signals are released and then collected.



This is a VEX bumper switch. The switch was not used particularly in the navigating aspect of the robot. Rather, the button was used to prevent the robot from running prematurely once the microcontroller was turned on. Rather, the robot would have to wait until the button was pressed in order to start the program.