BROOMBA IS SWEEPING!!

We were able to get our Bromba to sweep in autonomous mode just to make sure it works.

We are working on getting it to be controlled by a remote. Kathy is still on her adventure. Go Kathy!!! (Joseline- the cheerleader)

We Are Not Computer Science Majors Either

Last night Kate and Connor tried to get the IR receiver from the DVD player to work. Unfortunately, we wired the circuit wrong and we overheated the IR receiver, breaking it.

So this morning Kate went on an adventure to Radio Shack and got a new one!

This one works, and we were able to get the codes from the buttons on the Comcast remote that we were going to use to control the robot. Using the following program, we pulled up the Serial Monitor and got the codes corresponding to each button.

Below is the serial monitor with the codes for each button on the remote. We are going to use the directional buttons on the remote which we labeled forward, back, right, and left. Below are the codes we found for each button when we ran the program on the arduino. 

Snazzy SolidWorks Models in the Making!

Marc Risked His Life on Black Friday to Find us the Perfect Brush

Thanks, Marc! We're glad you made it back alive (see end for more of Marc's breathtaking adventure).

 Beautiful!

 Look at those luscious bristles!

Marc was caught amidst a wave of savage shoppers in the hardware store commonly referred to as Lowes, on Black Friday evening.  As our protagonist neared complete exhaustion, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the most spectacular sweeping machine he had ever seen.  Oh what a glorious day for all of mankind.

The Quest for the Infrared Receiver

Today, Connor and Kate had a little fun with a DVD player, screw drivers, and a soldering iron. Our happy little Broomba chassis kept us company while we did it.

DVD player and happy Broomba chassis

The first thing to do was take off the black covering. That was simple, we just had to remove a few screws.

Picture 1: Connor the hand model unscrewing the DVD case

Here's what we found underneath the outer covering of a DVD player:

Picture 2: inside of a DVD player

And here's a closeup of where the disk would go:

Picture 3: where the DVD goes

The white plastic that you can see in picture 3 was intertwined with the black plastic and it was hard to shimmy out of there gently. Since we weren't putting the DVD player back together, we just broke it all apart. After unscrewing multiple screws, we were able to find a few motors and some gears. 

Below a small yellow board is shown. You can see in Picture 2 where this was located in the DVD player. Everything was very heavily soldered onto this board so we weren't able to salvage anything from it, but it was pretty fun Googling the serial numbers of the parts to find out what served what purpose on this board. 

Picture 4

We found the IR receiver that we need! It was right next to the LED display.

Figure 5: The IR receiver! 

Picture 6: The IR receiver in all of its glory

 And for an added bonus, we managed to find and salvage a potentiometer!

Picture 7: Potentiometer!

It's Aliiive!

Wild Motor Shield Spotted!

While on his daily walk home from work,

Connor encountered an Adafruit Motor Shield v2.3.

Luckily the motor shield was obtained and can be used for the project.