Final Performance Test

The objective of performance test one was for the team of engineers to successfully code the advanced energy vehicle so that it will travel from the starting position on the track to the top of the hill and stop between two, making sure to trigger the first one but not trigger the second one, and then wait 7 seconds for the gate to open before proceeding forward past the gate. Once the aev has proceeded through the gate, the team will need to have the aev travel to the end of the track where a caboose is located. They will then hook the caboose to the aev via a magnet that the team added on to the design for this performance test and the ones following after this one. Once the hook to the aev to the caboose they will wait five seconds and then proceed out of the loading zone, which is where the caboose was located, and then proceed to the gate and wait for the gate to open. Once the gate is open the aev will proceed forward and into the starting dock, where it will stop between the end of the track and the tape that marks the end of the dock.

For this performance test, the team was able to finish it, but there were some issues with the official run. The team completed the majority of the run, but in the end, when the aev coasted into the starting dock, it hit the end of the track too hard, which caused the aev to bounce out of the starting dock a bit resulting in a penalty. For the final performance test, the team also had to worry about the overall budget of the project. For this, the team must first calculate the capital costs or the costs of all the parts that went into the aev design which they will then be added to the flat rates of the energy consumption and the time plus the amount that will be added based on the amount of the energy and seconds used in the runs. In this run, there were 216.5 joules used in 48.96 seconds. This resulted in the budget being over by $71,918 of the $500,00 allotted. Below are the breakdowns of the cost and the graph of the energy used during the final run.


Capital Cost $154,000
Energy Cost $233,330
Time Cost $164,250
Accuracy Penalty 1.0526
R & D Cost $0
Safety Violations $0
Total Cost $572,823

During this performance test, the team also had some issues with the overall functionality of the aev itself. A servo was added to the aev because to aid in the issues that were occurring with the consistency of the braking. Once this was added and another code was made, it seemed like everything was going up from there, but the positioning of the servo became a problem over time and had to be moved last minute. Another problem that came up was that during one of the final testing days the Arduino on the aev completely stopped working, and after troubleshooting with the TA for the majority of the class, the team was not able to complete anything on that day.

Here are the codes that were used in the performance test.

  1. reverse(4);

    motorSpeed(4,25) ;                                

    goFor(5) ;                      

    rotateServo(90);

    brake(4);

    goFor(10);                                               

    motorSpeed(4,25);

    goFor(3)  ;              

    brake(4) ;

    goFor(10)     ;                             

    reverse(4);

    motorSpeed(4,30) ;                                 

    goFor(6);

    rotateServo(90);

    brake(4);

    goFor(10)  ;                                    

    motorSpeed(4,30);

    goFor(3);                          

    rotateServo(90);

  2. reverse(4);

    motorSpeed(4,25);                                

    goFor(5);                       

    rotateServo(90);

    brake(4);

    goFor(10);                                               

    motorSpeed(4,25);

    goFor(3) ;                        

    brake(4) ;

    goFor(10);                                               

    reverse(4);

    motorSpeed(4,30);                                  

    goFor(6);

    rotateServo(90);

    brake(4);

    goFor(10);                                                

    motorSpeed(4,30);

    goFor(3) ;                        

    rotateServo(90);   

  3. reverse(4);

    rotateServo(85);

    brake(4);

    goFor(3);

    motorSpeed(4,30) ;                               

    goFor(6.1);                      

    rotateServo(0);

    brake(4);

    goFor(8.25);

    rotateServo(90);                                            

    motorSpeed(4,30);

    goFor(5.7);

    reverse(4);

    motorSpeed(4,40);

    goFor(1.2);                    

    brake(4);

    goFor(6);                                         

    motorSpeed(4,37);                                 

    goFor(6);

    rotateServo(10);

    brake(4);

    goFor(10);                                            

    motorSpeed(4,30);

    goFor(3);                         

    rotateServo(90);

  4. reverse(4);

    motorSpeed(4,30);                               

    goFor(5.9);                      

    rotateServo(15);

    brake(4);

    goFor(8.25);

    rotateServo(90);                                            

    motorSpeed(4,30);

    goFor(5.7);

    rotateServo(15);                   

    brake(4);

    goFor(6);                                         

    reverse(4);

    motorSpeed(4,37);                                 

    goFor(6);

    rotateServo(90);

    brake(4);

    goFor(8.25);                                            

    motorSpeed(4,30);

    goFor(3);                         

    rotateServo(15);

    brake(4);

  5. reverse(4);

    motorSpeed(4,30);                               

    goFor(6.1);                      

    rotateServo(70);

    brake(4);

    goFor(8.25);

    rotateServo(0);                                            

    motorSpeed(4,25);

    goFor(5.7);

    rotateServo(70);                   

    brake(4);

    goFor(6);                                         

    reverse(4);

    motorSpeed(4,37);                                 

    goFor(6);

    rotateServo(0);

    brake(4);

    goFor(8.25);                                            

    motorSpeed(4,30);

    goFor(3);                         

    rotateServo(70);

    brake(4);

  6. reverse(4);

    motorSpeed(4,30);                               

    goFor(6.2);                      

    rotateServo(70);

    brake(4);

    goFor(8.25);

    rotateServo(0);                                            

    motorSpeed(4,27);

    goFor(4.5);

    brake(4);

    goFor(2.9);

    rotateServo(70);                   

    brake(4);

    goFor(6);    

    rotateServo(0);                                     

    reverse(4);

    motorSpeed(4,41);                                 

    goFor(6.5);

    rotateServo(70);

    brake(4);

    goFor(8);

    rotateServo(0);                                            

    motorSpeed(4,43);

    goFor(4.5);                         

    rotateServo(0);

    brake(4);