Category Archives: Autonomous GPS Car

P for progress

New parts and a New Stanley! In order to replace the h-bridges we were able to get our hand on a motor shield that can handle both the actuator and car motor at the same time. Along with that Mr. Bahn welded a new bolt closer to the center of rotation on the steering axel. This new leverage now allows the actuator to steer the car twice as fast, but at the priced of putting a good bit of stress on the cars frame. This faster steering allows us to not only up the speed of the car but slow down the motion sensors . Continue reading P for progress

Progress?

The title of this post is a reference to bumps and bruises we had to deal with throughout the week. Mr. Bahn created a fantastic steering process for the car that couldn’t honestly work any better than it already has. The software for the car now includes a dummy variable “t” and a goal variable “g”, these two variables work together inside three if statements in order to determine the position of the actuator. Continue reading Progress?

Motion Sensor Madness

This week was specifically focused on using a motion sensor to control a small motor. The code up above has a simple void loop filled with a couple “if” statements. If  there is an object close to the sensor the motor stops, in order to simulate breaking, otherwise the motor just keeps spinning forward. The function at the bottom actually uses the echo pin  to find how long it takes to get that echo and from there it calculates how far the object is in cm.   I didn’t create the function so here’s the link to the webpage where I got a good chunk of the code http://www.instructables.com/id/Simple-Arduino-and-HC-SR04-Example/