Experience
Mechatronics graduate course. [2010]
This course was very applied. As a team of three, we were given a two-wheeled robot kit. We had to assemble the robot and install the control board. This required designing a practical circuit layout and plenty of soldering.
Throughout the semester, we were tasked with integrating new sensors into the robot. Lecture time was spent learning the electromechanics of these sensors as well as the coding techniques to use them. These sensors included sonar, accelerometer, encoders, infrared, and magnetic compass.
The final project challenged us with setting up the robot to self-navigate (no dead-reckoning) through a slalom course. We were allowed to choose which sensors and what programming strategy (interrupt, event trigger, watchdog timer, etc.) to use. Out of almost 15 groups, our robot finished the course in almost half the time of any other: 29.4 seconds.
The video can be seen on youtube: