R7: Explorer Project
Within many fields such as the military, search and rescue, mining and space exploration scientists have been working on autonomous robots they may be used to carry out tasks where it is not safe for people to work. Your team’s task is to design and program an autonomous robot that can explore and navigate its way around a room by avoiding walls and other obstacles before running into them. Your robot must have the capacity to carry a small camera or mobile phone.
For this task, you will keep a journal of your work in a Word document, which you will submit at various points in the project.
All projects need an introduction that tells the reader what the intended aim of the developed project will be. The problem definition explains the problem/situation and outlines the intended outcomes of the system.
In your journal:
Explain the task by describing the scenario or setting in which the problem exists. (ACTDIP027)
Using the table below list the Operational Features (or non-functional requirements) and the things the robot should do (or functional requirements). (ACTDIP027)
| End-User Features (functional requirements) | Operational features (non-functional requirements) |
|---|---|
| What the system should do | How the system should do it |
| The system shall do… | The system shall be… |
Before your team creates and develops a robot to achieve the goal(s) described above you need to discuss and document a SPA: SENSE — PLAN — ACT.
- SENSE
- The robot needs the ability to sense important things about its environment, like the presence of obstacles or navigation aids. What data does your robot need about its surroundings, and how will it gather that data? How will you validate the data collected? (ACTDIP025)
- PLAN
- The robot needs to take the sensed data and figure out how to respond appropriately to it, based on a pre-existing strategy. What is the robot’s strategy? How does your program determine the appropriate response, based on that strategy and the sensed data? Draw a flowchart of your plan. (ACTDIP029)
- ACT
- Finally, the robot must actually act to carry out the actions that the plan calls for. Will the robot design your team is planning to build allow it to sense and act out your plan, physically? What will the robot do? How will it act? (ACTDIP028)