Stoplight Bot

For this project, we got to make whatever we wanted as long as it integrated circuits, sensors and programming. We all enjoyed the first studio of making toys so we chose to make a robot that could play the classic game red light green light. With this project we practiced more of the process documentation paperwork side of engineering by writing a full length project proposal analyzing budget, stakeholders, features etc. as well as weekly memos.

Our final prototype is made out of a frame of Lego Mindstorms EV3 robots, enclosed in a wooden box, with a plastic branch covered in felt.

Chameleon on frame concept sketch made by Jester

When we first brainstormed our idea, we planned on making a 3d printed animal on a Leo Mindstorms frame which ran python. We decided to create the design of a chameleon because then we could make the chameleon light up red or green accordingly and it wouldn't look strange as chameleons naturally change colors.

We built our frame with deconstructed Lego EV3 Mindstorms robot kits because it was already designed to build robots and it came with most of the electronics we needed. We just needed to buy the led light strip

Zara building the LEGO frame

Jester's CAD model of Chameleon and Log

Jester made a wonderful CAD model of a tree branch and chameleon. Unfortunately we ran out of time to print the shell. So Zara and Isabel improvised a makeshift case out of thermoplastic. We also printed a different chameleon because it would print faster and it looked cuter. Isabel painted it in such a cute way.

The stand-in chameleon we borrowed from Thingyverse

Isabel molding the thermoplastic

On the programming side, I originally planned to run python on the EV3 control brick. No one around me knew how to do this so I attempted to figure it out by myself. I spent over 10 hours trying to interpret and troubleshoot instructions from three different sites. Unfortunately I couldn't figure it out within a reasonable amount of time and I was way behind schedule on programming, so I chose to go with the built in programming interface already on the EV3 control brick. Below is a picture of the game loop "written" in LEGO blocks coding

Zara and I testing the bot by playing the game!

Big Takeaways

During this Project I practiced:

How to write a project proposal
- Complete with solution outline, stakeholder research, a full budget plan, team member knowledge and planned learning
How to write weekly memos
How to adapt when things don't go to plan
- Very little of our project actually went to plan
- Despite setbacks, we created a functional game