Lately my ‘relaxation’ project has been dabbling in ‘building’ an autonomous maze solving car. Sounds grand, but in reality just using an off the shelf remote control Jeep and the RoboRacing bootstrap shield kit, both from the Xinchejian Hackerspace.
The Jeep has been stripped and an Arduino and the motor controller installed and tested.
The Arduino software has progressed to create an extensive framework manage:
- task prioritisation
- sensor data
- collision and obstacle avoidance
- selection from several maze solving algorithms
- two simple maze algorithms trialled in simulator
- additional logic to cater non-standard mazes and loops
- basic motor control on/off and PWM motor control completed.
For more relaxation, a maze solving simulator has also been developed using Processing. It shares some of the Arduino program and data structure.
The Big “to do’s” are deciding on approach to sensors – type(s), positions, number and the collision and obstacle avoidance, guidance, position tracking, and all the other code I am sure to have forgotten or just think is already working. So tomorrow I am off for some more ‘relaxation’ at the monthly Xinchejian robot race to check out the track and sensors used.
So now I’ve gone public on this, pride is at stake, so I’ll have to give updates of my future progress, or I’m sure my competitors at Xinchejian will only be to happy to report on my lack of progress 🙂