Team Challenge: Circuit Race

Today, we did a team challenge: the Circuit Race. The name was a little misleading for this challenge. First of all, I worked solo on this challenge and the second thing was it was not really a race, it was just to see if you you could make the robot go around the square without crossing the black tape line. It was 12 and it was time for the race. I volunteered to go first. The first run, my robot jumped for some reason, something it did not do in the trial runs. This jump caused it to run over the black tape. I was given another chance to start so I re-ran the program and everything went smoothly. To design the program, I first took the measurements off the course. I found out that all the sides were not equal so it was not really a square. I set up the ratios we learned in the wheels and distance lab. I took each side, entered in the correct number of degrees and ran each side one by one until I got the correct distance. Next I had to work on the right turn. I used the measured turns lab and decided to go with the swing turn because it was easier to control. I also turned the power down so the robot would be more accurate and not jumpy. I found that using the ratio, the turn was close but not exact so I had to make some modifications. Since the right turns would always be the same, I set up a myblock that had the right turn programmed in it. This saved me a lot of time, made sure I didnt mess up the program from doing it too many times, and made my program more organized. About the design of the robot: I tried running the course with large wheels at first to go for speed but they were not stable and therefore gave me inconsistent results. I then tried the smaller flat wheels which made the robot slow but very accurate. This is what I did for success in the Circuit Race.