Project Proposal

Project Proposal


High-level description


We’ll be making a pair of laser tag bots. As a minimum viable product, we will have two radio frequency controllers, each with a joystick for movement and a fire button, along with two mobile robots. The robots will be able to fire on one another (either using normal light or IR emitters), and have a receive that will emit a signal to indicate that it has been shot. We plan on incorporating a health and ammo display to the controllers, whether in the form of an LED bar or LCD screen.

Our goal for the product is to make a modular robot that users can customize for robot laser tag battles. We want to be able to exchange attack pieces (i.e. long range, more ammo, swivel cannon, freeze shots, etc.), and potentially some defense pieces as well (such as a shielding device). It would also be nice to have the controller LCD display more than just health and ammo, such as user messages. Regardless of how many peripheral functions we’re able to add, we plan to make the product scalable so that more than two robots could play in the same battle. To add finish to the product, we hope to add lights, sounds, and potentially vibration to the robots and controllers.

Required Elements

For our most basic design, we’ll end up using (per robot/controller pair):
  • RF or Bluetooth Rx/Tx modules for remote and robot
  • Two geared DC motors for robot mobility
  • 180 degree servo for the “laser turret”
  • IR LED and lens for the turret
  • IR receiver arrays for detecting hits
  • LED bar or 7-segment display for Health/Ammo display on controller
  • Joysticks and buttons for controller input
  • 2 microcontrollers for each robot/controller pair
For more complicated designs:
  • LCD for controller display
  • Piezo buzzers or small speakers for audio feedback
  • Vibration motors for haptic controller feedback
  • Modular laser/shield attachments

Our software will have to implement the following:
  • RF communication protocols between multiple robot/controller pairs
  • IR communication protocols to communicate team, damage, and other information

New Elements

We plan on learning the following new concepts for our project:

  • RF communication (including hardware)
  • IR communication
  • Joystick and button input
  • LCD/7-segment displays (for the advanced design)


Milestone
Date
Project Proposal
January 18
Final Proposal, Meet With Dr. Colton, Order All Necessary Components
January 25
RF / Remote Breadboard
February 1
IR Breadboard
February 8
CAD Base Drawing
February 15
Mobile Base, Robot Housings
February 22
Consistent RF Functioning
March 1
Consistent IR Functioning (Target Distance)
March 8
CAD Controller Drawing
March 15
Final Housings
March 22
Modular Pieces (hardware)
March 29
Modular Pieces (software)
April 5
Project Fair
April 12

Comments

  1. Mark ColtonJanuary 30, 2018 at 10:19 AM

    This sounds great. Some comments:

    1. Let's get the mechanical base designed as soon as possible. As you know, having a solid, reliable base is critical for these types of projects. Post CAD models as soon as you have something.

    2. It will be important to choose the transmitter approach early on. RC transmitter/receiver, or some other form of transmitter/receiver?

    3. To keep the scope manageable, I suggest focusing on the basic model first (transmitter/receiver, motors, turret, IR "gun" and receiver, and display). Then, after you get that working well, you can move onto other features. Post your thoughts on this in your next post.

    4. Have you found any good resources on creating IR "guns" and receivers? Post some info as you find it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownJanuary 31, 2018 at 5:58 PM

      Thanks, Dr. Colton!
      We've addressed your comments in our updated blog post.

      Delete
  2. Mark ColtonJanuary 30, 2018 at 10:20 AM

    One more thing: you'll obviously need to adjust the dates of your milestones, in part because of my slow start.

    ReplyDelete

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