Over the holiday period, due to the icelandic ash caused by the volcano, our final chassis was stuck with our chassis designer in Hong Kong! This meant we had to create a new chassis before our circuit and program could be tested. Before and during the holiday period, as a group we were focussed on the programming and left the chassis till the end which in hindsight was definetly a bad idea (although who knew about the volcano problem prior to it errupting?).
TEST DAY
We had just completed everything by monday night, and we only needed to fine tune the chassis which we would have done on the day. 2 hours before the demonstration, our buggy had completly stoped working. this was due to one motor failing. During the duration of the project, we constantly had problems with the two motors which were supplied. We first thought there was a problem with our circuit, then we thought it could be the program and finally the sensors. The batteries were also replaced but with no luck.
After ruling all these out in the fault diagnosing process, we found that the cables connected to the reverse of the motors were to blame. It was due to a bad connection as if they were moved about, the cogs in the motor would 'flicker' into life.
As no replacement motors were available, we had to solder the wires to improve the connection. Fixing the actual problem was relatively fast once a soldering iron was sourced. The actual fault diagnosing was very time consuming. Once both motors were soldiered and the wires replaced, we encountered a short circuit. I am not sure how this could have happened but even the lecturer confirmed our suspicion.
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