Each team must design and develop a prototype of a two-wheeled robot that demonstrates the completion of useful tasks for people within a specific context (home, school, business, etc.).
Your robot demonstration environment will be limited to 6 feet by 6 feet in size. Your team will customize this area to model a real-world environment by adding obstacles, objects, etc.
Your team will create a functional prototype of your robot using the provided robotics kit, which has various physical inputs (sensors, etc.) and physical outputs (motors, etc.) that can be programmed to perform various actions and behaviors.
Creative thinking will be required to identify possible tasks that the robot could demonstrate by sequencing different robot behaviors and actions. Every team will have an identical robotics kit, but each team will need to generate their own innovative concept for a robot that performs useful tasks.
Your robot prototype and demonstration environment may have to be a smaller-scale model or limited version of the real thing. For example, your demo environment will most likely represent a scaled-down, limited model of the real environment in which the robot would function. Furthermore, your robot prototype might not be capable of performing all the actions of your intended robot design.
If necessary, you can simulate certain robot parts or actions as long as the main tasks of your robot can still be demonstrated. For example, the robotics kit does not include an arm to grip objects. However, your team could simulate a robotic arm grabbing or placing an object, as long as the robot could still demonstrate another main task (such as navigating the environment to transport the object to a new location).
If necessary, you can construct parts (using cardboard, 3D-printing, etc.). These parts could provide functional value by helping the robot perform its tasks and/or aesthetic value by adding to the appearance of the robot (or environment) for demonstration purposes.
Your robot prototype will need to demonstrate 3 tasks, which could be:
different tasks that the robot would complete
variations of a task which show the robot's flexibility (e.g., ability to respond in different patterns such as traveling to different destinations, etc.) or adaptability (e.g., ability to respond to changes in the environment such as avoiding obstacles even if their location changes, etc.).
For example, if your robot concept was a food delivery robot, the prototype should demonstrate 3 tasks related to delivering food. One task could to deliver a food order to a specific customer location. A second task could be a variation where the robot delivers another order to a different location. A third task might demonstrate additional behavior such as: avoiding obstacles, avoiding driving off curbs, etc.
Each team will also create a product website to explain and market their robot concept. The website will include a robot demo video showing the robot prototype completing its tasks.
At the end of the semester, all teams will demonstrate and explain their robot prototypes at a public poster presentation.
