Robot Design

Rescue Line Tiles and Turns Obstacles Chemical Spill Sample Logbooks Robot Design Code Design

Tips for Line Follow

Wrap your colour sensors with paper that nearly touches the ground.
Make sure your wheels are relatively close to and behind your colour sensors.
- Making the wheels really wide will make your robot turn more suddenly - which is not something you want.
- Having your colour sensors too far from the wheels will mean your robot reacts too fast.
- Having your colour sensors after the wheels means you react too late.
Keep your colour sensors as close as you can, and consistent as you can.
- This makes your movements less erratic.
- The colour sensors should float on top, independent of the robot chassis. If the sensors can slide up and down, you will have generally consistent readings.

Detecting the water tower using a touch sensor is more reliable - if there is space, use a touch sensor.
Make sure your robot does not get stuck on ramps, speed bumps or seesaws. Whenever you change your robot, check that it works on these tricky tiles.
- Make sure your centre of gravity for the robot is over your driving wheels when climbing up and down slopes.

Your sonar needs to be low enough to detect cans and the final platform. Or, if you can find space for a camera and coders are up to the challenge, you can use a Pixy or NXTCam to detect coloured objects.
If you run out of sensor connections, you can use a sensor splitter, but this may take some more time to get working.
Pickup mechanism tips
- There are many ways to do it, take a look at this playlist for some ideas, as well as our sample logbooks.