ECE 491 - Senior Design ISE 491 - Senior Design ME 492 - Senior Mechanical Engineering Design Project Winter 2010

January 5, 2010

Winter 2010 Design Project Description:

For the Winter 2009 Senior Design experience, we will be designing, building, testing and competing with small, autonomous robots that can perform the following task:

The robots will begin at a starting position, move forward approximately 1 m to a set of 4 stairs, climb the stairs to a platform, move onto the platform, turn 90 degrees, climb down another set of 4 stairs and move across the floor approximately 1 m to the finish line.

The stairs will be constructed from readily available materials suitable for building exterior decks. The stairs will be open (no risers) and will be approximately 45-60 cm wide. The stairs and platform will not have sides or guards of any kind. It is possible that the actual set of stairs used for the competition may not be constructed until the semester break. Once the competition set is constructed, detailed drawings and dimensions will be distributed to each design group. The competition stairs may not be available for testing before the competition.

In order to successfully complete the task, the robot must touch the top of each step and the platform. During the course of the semester additional constraints may be placed on the behavior of the robots due to safety or fairness considerations. Updates will be made on this web page. Check back often for the latest information.

The competition will consist of 3 trials for each team´s robot, with the shortest of the three times taken as the scoring time. Each trial is limited to 5 minutes; trials that last longer than 5 minutes or in which the robot falls off the stairs or platform will be assigned a time of 300 seconds. The score for the competition will be the scoring time in seconds multiplied by the volume (in cubic centimeters) of the bounding rectangular box the robot fits into when it is in climbing configuration. The lowest score wins. Faster, smaller robots will score better than slower, larger robots.

Updates

• 1-5-2010: In addition to climbing the stairs, turning 90° and descending the stairs, the autonomous robot must carry a glass of water as it neogtiates the course. The glass will be supplied (12-16 oz plastic tumbler, approximately 2/3 full). Each robot must have a flat, open, 10-cm x 10-cm (4"x4") platform on its top for the water glass. The water glass will be placed in the center of the platform immediately before the trial. No special structures or materials will be allowed that, in opinion of the instructors, prevent the glass from tilting or sliding on the platform.
• 1-12-2010: Groups will place their robots at the starting line aligned in any direction. The timer will start the robot via a switch located in plain sight.
• 1-12-2010: The required turn at the top of the stairs may be right or left, by choice of the design group. Improved scores may be earned by robots who can negotiate both right or left turns.

Competition:

On Tuesday April 20, 2010 a competition will be held for all of the design groups from 10:00 am - noon.

Discussion for the final written reports:

For your final written reports, in addition to your technical discussions, you are to discuss applications of the technologies that you are exploring and developing in this project. For your final report, discuss various applications of the technologies, with specific emphasis on:

• Engineering Standards - describe the process in which you searched for applicable professional engineering standards and applied them in your design.
• Safety - what sort of constraints must be accounted for if such technologies you employed were used on a large scale?
• Economic factors - How much would it cost to implement such technology and what sort of jobs would it impact (consider improvements to safety as well as displacing jobs)? What sort of impact would this have on the acceptance of such technologies?
• Reliability - if this technology was to be used in mass applications, what sort of reliability and failure rates would be acceptable?
• Aesthetics - what sort of additional devices or accessories could be used to make this technology as aesthetically attractive as possible while retaining its essential functionality?
• Potential customers - who would be the consumer for such technology? Consider the consumer of this technology; who would be the consumer? A government agency? Manufacturers? Insurance companies? The public at large?
• Societal impact - what would be the potential benefits to society for the applications that you discuss? What would be the potential drawbacks?