Lessons Learned - parmsco/Line-Following-Robot GitHub Wiki

Through the course of this project, the group was able to successfully work together to create an exemplary robot and report. From week one the group worked hard together through multiple team meetings as well as individually. This work continued up until the competition at the end of the semester. The group completed multiple team evaluation processes including a team contract and meeting minutes. Each member also individually created a self-analysis to analyze themselves and the group. After weekly meetings throughout the semester, the group managed to finalize a high-quality robot and report. The group was faced with many obstacles that were each overcome. One main lesson that the group learned was that time management is crucial for the completion of a large project and report. Unlike the first project, the group had to work on building, creating, and testing a robot as well as maintaining a timeline when it comes to completing the report. The team found that if the team got behind on any one of these tasks, then it became exponentially more difficult to complete on time and efficiently. Thankfully, the group was strong in this aspect and it did not bog the team down too much and each member was able to complete what was needed to be completed. The group also learned about the difficulties of building a robot that worked consistently. In order for the robot to be consistent and make it around the track in an equal amount of time each time, the group had to significantly tweak the robot. One tweak that had to be made was the addition of ultrasonic sensors that improved the consistency of the robot by preventing it from hitting the walls as well as mechanical clickers that were added to the side of the robot if it hit the walls. Another tweak that had to be made was through the programming. It took the group a long time to improve and debug the code so that each sensor worked correctly and helped the group create a more consistent robot. The final big lesson that the group learned was that the testing and multiple iterations were crucial for completing a task of this magnitude. The group failed multiple times when building the robot, which caused setbacks, but through extensive testing and creating multiple prototypes, the failures ended up helping the robot out in the end. It took a lot of patience from each member and not getting frustrated was difficult when working hard seemed to not get the design anywhere. In the end, the testing and patience helped the groups moral; we ended the project with a very strong robot that worked well. Even if it did not win the competition, Bowie (our robot) was a strong candidate.