For Part1: Click here
Only few days were left and in those few days it was require to
integrating all sections, to test the robot and to solve any error. As we
already tested all the sections separately it seems easy. But the real challenge
to build robot was just started. We decided to change the material used to
build body of robot from wood to poly sheet. Because the body made from wood was
somewhat heavy. It was better to have less weight. For almost two days I along
with Krishna queried in almost every shop of SIYAGANJ market and few other
shops for poly sheet. But all was vain. After two days, while asking for poly
sheet we came to know that poly sheet is used in advertisement industry. Then
we concentrated on advertisement agencies only and after some efforts we got
poly sheet.
We wanted to work after the department close its doors. So we
chose Krishna’s room in hostel as our lab because it was nearest to department.
At that time Amar was preparing for GATE. Initially we had planned to use one
sided PCB to implement circuits but Krishna insisted to use zero PCB (general
PCB). One advantage of using zero PCB is that any connection can be change
easily while in other case it is requiring to redesign the PCB. So after some
debate all agree for zero PCB. Then we started to implement circuits on PCB.
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| Mechanical design of robot. (Thanks to NIVEA) |
During those days we worked from morning to late night. We
usually sleep for four-five hours. Tube light remains ON for 24 hour, as at
least one person was there who still working or completed his sleep. During
those days I went my room just to take bath and change clothes in morning and
to take dinner in night. Rest of time I found myself at department or at Krishna’s
room. During late nights, hostel had deserted look but CHUNNU and MUNNU were
always there for us. They also refuse to sleep until we went to bed. Selfless
service of both brothers indirectly motivate us to keep continue our work.
CHUNNU and MUNNU are two speakers’ manufactures by lenevo (for us). They
are still inspiring me. Chunnu – munnu, you are great and melodious.
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| CHUNNU-MUNNU doing their work during late night |
In few days we made circuits on PCB and also made body of
robots on own. We also made test path on paper so that we could test the
accuracy of our robot to follow path. Our strategy was to first build a line
follower robot and then slave robot. So it was time to integrate them all.
After the integration, we had first prototype of our robot. We were exited to
test our robot. We were praying that everything should be fine because the main
task is to build another robot to which line follower robot send information
regarding the path it is following and another robot follow same path based on
this information.
When we tried our robot with test path, we found that line
follower robot was not following path accurately. This makes us little
disappointed but at least we had something to test. After some spying on robot
while it was following the path, we came to conclusion that there must be
problem in our algorithm. I advised that everybody made his own algorithm and
let us see which algorithm will work. We maintained this throughout our
project. Everybody tried but the result was not satisfactory. So we decided to
change the position of sensors and increased the number of sensors. This
required to again designing the sensor circuitry and it took some more
sleepless nights.
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| Robots enjoying each other's company |
After we had line follower robot with new sensor design, we
again tested our robot. This time, results were better than previous time but
not so much accurate. So we decided to improve our algorithm to such extent
that we got satisfactory result. But at the same time calendar was changing
dates and we really needed to worry about deadline. After discussions and
debates, we had algorithm which gave us performance above average. Suddenly we realized
that we had only less than day to think about another slave robot. Although we
had body of both robots, so we need to worry about the body of slave robot. We
tested both robots with wireless communication between them. The result was
very disappointed for us, it seem like nothing was happening. While master
robot (line follower robot) was following the path, slave robot was watching
like a child towards master robot and waiting for instructions. With hope in
mind that something good will happen, we leaved for IIT Khadagpur…
[To be concluded..]
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