Make the traditional line follower track more colorful!
The addition of a single ColorPal sensor and QTI Line Follower Kit on an ActivityBot 360 creates a far more interesting set of line following navigational challenges. In this project, the use of red, yellow and green color samples are used to signal the ActivityBot 360 to make left, right and u-turn maneuvers, respectively. A WS2812 RGB LED displays the last color seen by the ColorPal and a piezospeaker plays sound effects when colors are detected.
This simple-looking project was designed with specific ActivityBot 360 sensor placement and line shapes in mind. Changing the position of sensors or the angles of line intersection requires different program designs and logic. These are all part of the challenge of creating an environment of your own and code to do the task. Self-driving cars would be easier to program and control if they were able to interact with additional features in a road, as demonstrated in this project.
This project also demonstrates two additional programming practices that can be incorporated into many robotics programs:
- The New Processor block. A piezospeaker generates sound effects simultaneous with servo motor control and logic, running in its own processor. It’s a demonstration of how the Propeller Multicore Microcontroller programming environment can be used to do parallel tasks; and
- Using an LED for visual feedback, troubleshooting, and debugging. In physical computing (also called embedded programming) LEDs can be used to show the programmer which functions of code are being run.
Parts List
- (1) – Fully-assembled and tested ActivityBot (#32500) or ActivityBot 360 (#32600)
- (1) – QTI Line Follower Kit for the Small Robot (#28108)
- (1) – ColorPal Sensor (#28380)
- (1) – WS2812 LED #28085
- (1) – Piezospeaker (included in the ActivityBot kits)
- (1) – roll of electrical tape
- (1) – posterboard or desk
- (misc) color paint samples
Additionally, you may need some double-sided sticky tape, cardboard, popsicle sticks and some small screws to properly position the ColorPal on your ActivityBot 360. The exact configuration of this setup is left up to you.
Note: Soldering assembly is required for the WS2812 LED module.
