Crickit Carnival Bumper Bot

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mcleanb48
 
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Crickit Carnival Bumper Bot

Post by mcleanb48 »

Hi,
I recently got my Adabox008 and began to make the Crickit Carnival Bumper Car. I have gone through every step of the tutorial and completed the construction and programming of the robot. Everything works fine except for one small problem: my robot does not register many of the things that it bumps into. I have to hit it pretty forcefully in order for it to change colors, move the servo, and then back up and change directions. I have added a bumper to it, like the tutorial suggests, and it still just runs into things and tries to continue to move while going nowhere. Is there something that I can do to help the CPX pick up the 'shake' easier than it is right now?
Thanks.

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johnpark
 
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Re: Crickit Carnival Bumper Bot

Post by johnpark »

The first thing I would check is that you have fresh alkaline batteries, I've had a surprising number of problems go away when I change out the batteries.

I would also check to see that your Crickit and Circuit Playground Express are securely mounted to the bot's chassis so that the vibration of the bump is being transferred to the board -- if it can shift around it may not get the impact. If you hold the bot in your hand and tap the board does it behave as expected?

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mcleanb48
 
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Re: Crickit Carnival Bumper Bot

Post by mcleanb48 »

I will try out changing the batteries, but as of right now I have to forcefully hit the front of the bot pretty hard before it realizes it has bumped into something. Just letting it run into the wall or holding it and tapping it do nothing.

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johnpark
 
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Re: Crickit Carnival Bumper Bot

Post by johnpark »

One suggestion from Mike Barela:
The set accelerometer range adjusts sensitivity - 1g, 2g, 4g, 8g

There is the on shake method

You can get the acceleration in x, y, z, or strength. You could plot strength as it bumps and see what values seem to be ok and use as an alternative to shake perhaps.
accelMC.png
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Racer1Tn
 
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Re: Crickit Carnival Bumper Bot

Post by Racer1Tn »

I have to agree with mclean, that I built the same and its not responsive to jars and bumps. When it runs into something the servo twitches and the bot does not reverse. yes I have tried several sets of batteries, to be sure its not a voltage issue. I downloaded the code and tried it, as well as entered the same as what it pictured with the same results. Major disappointed...Not my first build either. I'll try changing the accelerometer settings to see if it helps.
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johnpark
 
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Re: Crickit Carnival Bumper Bot

Post by johnpark »

Sorry to hear this. I built three of them and they all performed well. I'll try to revisit and see if I can figure out what's going on for people who aren't having success with it. Could you upload some pictures of the bot so I can see if there's anything in particular that's going on?

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robrem
 
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Re: Crickit Carnival Bumper Bot

Post by robrem »

Fresh batteries are definitely a must, but I also used the Y-axis acceleration as a measure rather than using the "on shake" method. Just be sure you've oriented your Crickit so that the Y-axis points forward, i.e. the Crickit power outlet is at the front of your bot.

You can play with the sensitivity by adjusting the values. For me, using 200 as the threshold was sometimes slightly too sensitive; it occasionally stops in the middle of the floor as if it had bumped into something. However, I found 200 allows it capably to navigate some really tricky obstacles!

I put my code to react to the bump inside this statement:

Code: Select all

if (input.acceleration(Dimension.Y) > 200 || input.acceleration(Dimension.Y) < -200) { }
And thanks @johnpark for such cool tutorials! I am having so much fun with ADABOX008.

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johnpark
 
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Re: Crickit Carnival Bumper Bot

Post by johnpark »

Thanks for the tips @robrem, very cool! And I appreciate you saying so -- glad you like the tutorials and are having fun w AB008!

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burrman
 
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Re: Crickit Carnival Bumper Bot

Post by burrman »

I noticed voltage issues too. why did Adafruit go with 3 AAA batteries and not 4 (4.5v vs. 6v)?

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johnpark
 
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Re: Crickit Carnival Bumper Bot

Post by johnpark »

The Crickit should be powered from 4V to 5V, so that's why we don't use four alkalines, which can get up between 6V and 7V. The issues are not so much the voltage as the current. So three high-quality alkaline will provide about 4.5V with enough current to prevent resets.

If you want to use 4 x AA rechargeable NiMh batteries, that'll work too, since that is a safer 4.8V vs alkaline's 6V or higher.

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