WROOM

[joshua-8]

Built summer of 2020

driverstation: https://github.com/joshua1024/RCMDS
robot code (old RCM code): https://github.com/joshua1024/RCM

teaser.mp4

auto.cube.grab.mp4

WROOM (named after the WROOM series of ESP32 processors and because it sounds like an engine noise) was the robot I built for the mini power up game.

I chose to use a claw for grabbing cubes since it could open very wide and make it easier to get cubes. I put the claw on an arm with a raised pivot because at the size these robots are it's easy to make the arm strong enough, and because it's the simplest mechanism I could think of that would let me raise cubes to any level.

I knew that connection lag would make the robot difficult to drive, and that I'm not as good with a joystick as many of my friends, so I decided that my design should involve sensors and more complex code to help me out. I decided to make the arm and claw of the robot operate as automatically as possible so I could focus on just driving the robot to where it needed to go.

Using infrared LEDs and receivers I made short range distance sensors and put one in front of the robot, one behind, and one in the claw. I also connected a stick to a switch so the robot could detect the high up scoring plate.

I was successful in programming WROOM to move its arm and claw mostly by itself (demonstrated in the video above), but when I started using WROOM in the more chaotic environment of a game with other robots it would sometimes throw cubes at other robots or just straight over the scoring zones. I learned that it would have been more effective to program some preset positions for the arm, but keep more manual control over what the robot does. This is what all of my friends did for their robots. However, I don't regret my design since I enjoyed programming and playing with it.