Abstract
The 2017 IEEE SoutheastCon Student Hardware Competition requires participants to build a robot to autonomously navigate through a Star Wars themed arena. The robot dimensions are initially constrained by a 12 inch cube. It must complete four tasks within four minutes. In Task 1, the robot must approach a stage with six copper pads on it. Five of the pads are connected to five different electronic components and the sixth is common to all of the components. The robot must determine the position of each of the components. In Task 2, the robot must detect the (magnetic) force created by the arena and strike a lightsaber while the magnetic field is on. In Task 3, the robot must turn a knob in alternating directions as described by the position codes of the components discovered in Task 1. In Task 4, the robot must somehow deposit up to three Nerf darts into a hole on the far side of the arena. Based on those competition guidelines, our robot was constructed with four integrated modules to fully address four individual tasks. Specifically, two microcontrollers are programmed for the basic functions of robot navigation, components measurements, magnetic field detection, servo motor control for gripper and swing arm, and pulling the trigger for darts firing. Robot navigation control is done based on the feedback from infrared sensors, ultrasonic distance sensors, contact sensors, and wheel encoders. The tasks were first implemented individually and then integrated. The final robot was tested to illustrate the successful completion of the IEEE SoutheastCon Hardware Challenge.