Today we tested the buggy and it was not functioning at the time when we needed it to. It was functioning fine this morning, however, unfortunately i did not understand why the buggy was not even programming when we needed it to. The buggy may have short circuited as we were trying to fix the problematic motor once again.
Problem?
The problem in my view was the connection leading to the motor . We tried to solder it many times and as we pressed on the blue wired connection, the motor would start to run. We tried everything , however, i personally think the batteries were accidentally left connected when trying to solder. This may have short circuited the buggy as we were in a desperate rush to atleast get the buggy moving again just before the test.
What would be done differently if i was to do this project again ..
I would stick to simple circuitry like the one which we had to rebuilt to. I would leave a lot more time to test the buggy for following the line and would want do the connections for the wires as strong as possible the first time around.
What was suprising about the project ?
One definate thing i found suprising was how many times the buggy defunctions . This is what i would take into consideration in future project. Everyday there was something which was failing, if not one thing, it was another. It has been a true practical learning experience that theory in reality does not always compute.
Technical Problems / Improvements
Two LDR's were placed on either side of the black line. In our design, especially from the pictures of our design, if both read light, the buggy would go forward ( which can be seen from the programming aswell. If one read darkness, the buggy would turn. We got to test this out , however, the testing was cut short as we had a motor problem near the time of testing. However, When the LDR's were covered ( with paper) which can be seen from our buggy pictures posted earlier, the buggy did follow the line better. The LDR'S were paried with LED's . This was due to the fact that as the LED went over the black line, less light would be reflected to the LDR. Each LDR was paired with an LED and covered in black paper so that it had a control light setting. As the LED moved over the black line it would reflect less light into the LDR. An improvement to the system would be to have a third LDR as we originally planned which would always be exposed to darkness. This would have been the middle LDR and would have made sure out buggy would not have strayed off the line. In addition, more could have been done with the paper cover of the LDR's to stop light comming in. This could have been made more stylish and more effective, however, we found this was not possible due to our own lack of time management.
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"One definate thing i found suprising was how many times the buggy defunctions ."
ReplyDeleteNever heard of the word "defunctions" !
Systems like this rarely fail randomly with individual components very reliable. In almost every case failure will be down to human error
> a flawed concept - ie. the design would never work, > poor implementation - ie. the concept is correct but it has been built incorrectly
> lack of appreciation of noise in the system - ie. failing to account for errors associated with eg. changing light conditions or
> poor build quality - eg. intermittent faults due to shorts as component legs touch or connections lack integrity.
If a fault is permanent it is likely to be one of the first two cases. Components may have failed but generally only if they have been in someway abused (eg. shorted) and their failure is a symptom rather than a cause.
If the fault is intermittent it is likely to be one of the latter cases.