VEX Car Maze Project
So apparently, our teacher wants to challenge us with ANOTHER Project, which was to build a car and navigate it through the obstacle course that our teacher set up. If you've seen the programming on the Test Bed Build Page demonstrating how the motors turn the same way, you'll be able to imagine how long this programming will take! Each turn and forward will have to include a stop command, wait command, start command and a bunch more! The challenges just keep coming and coming, making us always work with no time to spare. Be prepared, this class won't have time for you to chit chat all period!
However, the project deemed more difficult than we thought, so the deadline was extended to 3-4 weeks long. My group for this car project was with Khanh, a fellow friend, so I wasn't uncomfortable with working together. It took around a week to build the design for a car, and even then, there were a lot of problems. First, our car was unstable because we chose the wrong platform to work with, and it kept bending. The platform couldn't support the motors and wheels, we decided to take apart the car and replace the platform. We were panicking because everyone was already finished, and we were one of the last groups to finish our car design. When we finally finished the build, I started to work on the code, so we wouldn't be left behind everyone else. Working halfway through the course, I finally thought we caught up with the others, but another major problem arose. The car couldn't go straight! No matter where I was in my coding, it was useless if the car itself couldn't follow it. It was one of the most stressing moments in my life because we couldn't move on from that point, and we couldn't figure out what was the problem. I ended up staying after school several times to try to fix the problem, but to no avail. That was when I thought all of my work was useless until I figured out I just have to code according to how my car moves. For example, instead of making the turns perfectly 90 degrees, I made it around 80 degrees so when the car turns, it makes a perfect 90, since the car keeps turning anyway. I adjusted all my turns and even made the speed of one wheel faster than another so it could go straighter. We were 1/3 finished with the course until we encountered right turns. Once again, we were against a wall, but this time, most of the class also got stuck. That was when the thought struck me. "If we can't turn right, why don't we just turn left 270 degrees?" It turned out that idea worked, but not without hard work and effort. The car kept changing direction every time we tested it, so it was through 3-4 weeks of trial and error that we finally perfected it and made it through half the course. Due to the lack of time, out teacher cut the course in half, so we technically finished the project!
Here is a section of our coding for our car. The actual code was much longer, and was very tough to do. There was always changes to our car whenever we tested it, so the code always changes. That's why when we tweak even a bit of the car, it will affect the whole car and the programming has to be adjusted. Overall, the most important thing I learned from this project was that I shouldn't change my car model if something is wrong, but my programming instead. If I change my car model, then the programming would be all different, and it would take more time. However, if I just work with what I have and change the code to match the car's problems, it would be more efficient. For example, when my car kept turning, I kept tweaking it and changing it, so the programming was off for the car. I learned the hard way that I could've easily increased the speed of the wheel that was turning, and position the car crooked so it would go straight.