ANU Robots vs. The Maze
MORE: https://cecs.anu.edu.au/robot-rovers
Student teams watched with hands clasped in prayer as their robot cars attempted to navigate mazes using sonar sensors to detect and avoid obstructions. To earn high marks, the robots would need to complete each of two mazes in under 3 minutes, with points deducted for touching walls.
"I was expecting to have to start with a bunch of maths and planning before actually getting to start working on any kind of project," said Matthew Britton, a first-year student taking part in a course called Discovering Engineering at The Australian National University (ANU). "So being handed a very open-ended project right at the start was a lot of fun."
The student teams were supplied with a "bag of bits", including ultrasonic sensors, wheels, and motors. An electronic prototyping platform called Arduino allowed them to upload coding from a laptop to a small piece of hardware that served as the robot's "brain".
"The Arduino would read the received signals from the sonar sensor," explained student Yingjie Wang. "If the received signals implied that the distance between the obstacle in front of the sensor and the rover is shorter than a certain distance, the Arduino would communicate to the motors to either make the rover stop or to turn a corner."
Course convener Dr Fiona Beck said the Rover Project teaches teamwork and collaboration by throwing first year students in a "potentially stressful but actually quite unimportant situation" that requires computer programming as well as engineering skills.
"It's not just words on a page or me talking to you in the lecture," Dr Beck said. "It's actually information that you need to go away and implement right now. And it's a really great way to learn about engineering by doing engineering."
MORE: https://cecs.anu.edu.au/robot-rovers