NatProgress

MEMORANDUM
To: Mr. William Sitch
97.497 RoboFlag Project Co-ordinator

From: Nathalie Klaesi-Van
The Sentinels, Student number 215279

Date: December 3, 2001

Subject: Progress Report for the 97.497 Roboflag Project

Summary:
The Purpose of the RoboFlag project is to build an autonomous robot, to be able to navigate a maze while playing capture the flag and to abide to the rules outlined on the course web page at: http://roboflag.carleton.ca/rules/. The basic demo was successful and most of the components of the robot Morpheus have been implemented and tested and are ready to be PCB�d, refined, updated and mounted. The costs of the project are still under the maximum expected level.

Introduction:
This document is the progress report for the RoboFlag project 97.497, which will run from September 2001 to April 2002. It will outline the completed work from the first week in September to December 3rd, the future work to be done, and will bring to your attention problems and changes encountered. The manager and systems designer of the Sentinels, Nathalie Klaesi-Van, wrote this report. The rest of the Sentinels team are Steven Lougheed the software designer, and John Danson the electrical designer. The Sentinels are now ready for the next phase of implementation and testing, and will be preparing for the upcoming oral presentation and the competition. The final report should also be completed on time. Most of the work proposed in the original proposal has been completed with a few minor changes from the original plan due to some problems, which will be outlined later in this report.

Progress Summary:
The Basic demo has been completed with success. The Sentinels presented a working robot with only a few minor changes from the original proposed robot. The following sensors have been successfully demonstrated: The sonar, beacon detector and emitter, the IR sensors, the bump sensors, the grabber and the colour detector.

The flag detector only worked partially due to a PIC software mistake. This problem will be solved shortly as outlined in the Gantt chart. The other component that couldn�t be demonstrated was the compass, and this was due to a manufacturing defect. This problem too will be rectified shortly. The bump sensors were quite difficult to get to work since they were not sensitive enough. This problem was solved temporarily by decreasing the surface area by applying some glue spots. We still have to work on this since the spots seem to make permanent depressions into the conductive rubber, which then always conducts. If we can�t solve this problem we might have to revert to regular bump switches.
The changes that have occurred from the original plan include the following: The stepper motors� size has changed, so they had to be mounted on the bottom of the lowest platform instead of the top as previously anticipated. The colour detectors donated to us from Hamamatsu proved too difficult to implement and were replaced by a PNA 4603H-ND.

Future work for Steven will include more software algorithms and addition to the modules controlling the sensors. John will be working to PCB the hardware components and to polish his PIC code for the stepper motors and the compass. He also wants to work on the sonar more to get more usable data instead of spending time designing a driver for the stepper motors. Nathalie will PCB the flag detector and the beacon emitter and detectors after breadboarding and testing the circuit with the full amount of these sensors since only one of each has been tested so far. She will also be working on the PIC code controlling the flags to enable more flags to be monitored. Nathalie is also keeping track of the costs of the project, which are at $700.00 right now, which is still under the budget of $800.00. The cost might go above the budged if the cost of making the PCB�s is too high, but the team is working on keeping it as close to the projected budget as possible.

The Sentinels team will be working together to mount all the components on the platforms, to create a revolving platform for the sonar, and to integrate all sensors together. The radio communication still has to be implemented and then tested with another team. The team is also going to prepare for the oral report, and the competition. The final report draft will also be started sometime in January as outlined in the attached Gantt chart.

Conclusion:
Overall all the Sentinels are working steadily towards creating an autonomous robot that will play capture the flag both offensively and a defensively, and that will co-operate with another team�s robot. The progress from September to December 3rd has been as anticipated and the team will continue to meet the objectives of this project. The problems that were encountered are in the progress of being solved and the team has stayed close to the proposed schedule and overall plans for Morpheus.