Week 4 summary

Week 4 summary

On 27^th February, we had the forth lab time. We still found the car turned too quickly.
Professor Ralph popped into our lab during the lab time and had a look of tracking process.

Figure 1. Group member discuss with tutor

Figure 2. Group photo with our tutor

 

In order to solve this problem, we came up with several ideas and had a go. Firstly, we tried to slow down the speed by increase the wheelbase. We got a huge help from the lab teachers- they provided one golden colour metal stick. Then our group member polished the stick to fit with the radius of the neck of the wheel.

Figure 3. Polish the stick

Figure 4: Renewed wheels

 

Because in a certain time the motor rotational speed is constant, the length swept by the wheel is also constant in the same time period. The ratate length equals to radius multiply the angular velocity. So that the longer the radius is, the slower the angular velocity would be in a certain time period. However we found the effect was not obvious. So we abandond the new wheels.

Then we tried to set up a pause time. By setting a pause time, the program will run only in a short time. We can shorten the radio swept by the camera by shorten the rotate time. This idea was better than the one before. In this way, the tracking system will detect the item intermittently but more stable.

Figure 5: The modified programming language