The purpose of this lab was to assemble and become familiar with the AEV’s reflectance sensors and how to integrate their abilities into our code. The reflectance sensors work in conjunction with the reflective tape on the wheel to accurately count the AEV’s movement on the track, providing means for more accurate coding and adaptability to many situations. This lab required the team to attach the senors to the arduino/AEV, and after doing so, test them in the arduino program. After confirmation that the senors worked properly (indicated in the arduino program with a repeating series of ‘1’), the team gained the ability to use arduino commands such as ‘goToRelativePosition(m)’ and ‘goToAbsolutePosition(m)’, which are dependent on information from the sensors regarding how many marks the AEV has traveled.

Major takeaways from this lab are a knowledge of how the AEV will travel along the track in units of marks, a more broad understanding of previously introduced arduino commands, and a more developed AEV design.

View the full executive summary here: ES 4

The reflectance sensors, zip-tied to the AEV arm and plugged in the arduino board.

The reflective tape on the wheel. This helps the sensors count the amount of marks traveled.