The purpose of the AEV project was to develop a monorail transportation system that worked consistently with minimal energy usage. Through this project, group members were able to learn how to prototype designs, write code for hardware applications, and work in groups by splitting responsibilities and working together to accomplish goals. The project was split into two main parts: first, the group learned how to program the Arduino, prototype designs, score and compare designs, and take measurements such as energy usage on the designs. The second part of the project mainly consisted of using the skills obtained in the first part of the project to improve the AEV by testing new code, designs, and other changes against the base AEV to see if any changes optimized energy efficiency, consistency or speed of the AEV.
The specifics of the task was to design and program an AEV. The AEV must start within the starting marks, travel to a gate. At this gate, the AEV must stop after the first sensor to trigger it so the gate moves down, but before the second sensor so that the AEV does not collide with the gate. The AEV must wait for 7 seconds here before it starts moving to the end of the track, where it must pick up cargo using magnets. After connecting with cargo, the AEV must wait 5 seconds before going back to the gate, following the same rules as before. Finally, the AEV must travel back to the starting location with the cargo and stop before the end of the track without collision. These goals must be accomplished while also minimizing energy usage during the run,
In the group’s first and only run, the AEV was able to accomplish all the goals and complete a fully successful run, earning a score of 50/50. The AEV was also able to do this in 52 seconds, the third fastest time in the class. After retrieving and plotting the run data on a graph using the AEV Analysis Tool, the data showed that the AEV used around 6 joules of energy, far below the next smallest energy usage in the class of 190 joules. It was later discovered that the group’s use of while loops without a specific AEV function had caused the Arduino board to not record current correctly, effectively reducing the energy usage.