At the beginning of this week I was formerly given my final assignment of the semester – a practical project in which I must construct some type of simple circuit to be able to provide a solution a problem. This assignment is due in about two weeks from now, and although the assignment sounds quite fun and exciting, I am slightly stressed about it as I am unsure of what to build and I haven’t yet committed to any problem nor idea. Part of the reason as to why I have been unsuccessful thus far is that I have been focussed on a practical report for Physics, due early in this upcoming week. This assignment has been a rather difficult one and so it’s taken quite a bit of time to come up with something that I am happy with.
While thinking about this assignment even before it was officially released, I wanted to build a very basic robot dog, however I am not sure if I have enough time to make it advanced enough to accomplish any sufficient goal. I feel like a may be able to make it walk in a straight line, and in addition I might even be able to make it turn or sense collisions to stop walking, though that might be a stretch. Another idea was to build a solution to a problem given to me in another class, being engineering. This class’s assignment is to get food out of a vent with a 7x7cm opening on the international space station. However this task, while it requires some developing and designing, includes very little programming, a major issue as my robotics assignment is to be made from something such as an Arduino. Another issue with this idea is that my robotics practical is due in 2 weeks, whereas my engineering is due in 5, and has a very different focus to this practical.
I have very little time to consider what to make as I will need to start actually constructing it soon to ensure I have enough time to adjust and fix any bugs. Throughout the practices with Arduinos, I enjoyed playing around with servo motors and potentiometers more than anything else, so I would like to include one if not both of those in whatever I decide to make, however I am excited to solve the problem with all of the process being up to me, and developing a solution my way. By the end of this week I hope to be testing my first (and likely my last) prototype of what I end up choosing.