The 2 modifications that I was able to get done for my Omni-directional robot were an outside wooden body for my robot and a shelf on top that can be used to store small objects or a holder for an iphone 7 that can record videos/live stream. The wooden body for my robot required a lot of measurements and precise cutting which didn’t take me that long. I had to cut out a hexagonal top and rectangles for the walls on the side. As far as the shelf on the hexagonal top, this was more of a modification that wasn’t necessary, but I was just interested in having. I was always into robots that were equipped with cameras so after I got this done it was such a relief.

For my 3rd milestone, I have completed the building and coding of my robot. The ps2 controllers are successfully configured to the receiver and the H bridges that control the motor. This milestone included sawing/shaping the wood for my robot. I decided to make a hexagonal shape for my base and I made another hexagon with 5 rectangles for an outside structure. For my wheels, I had to bend bars to fit nicely around the wheel and firmly on the hexagon base, which was a challenge of mine. Finally, I had a longer problem with the stop function in my code. For some reason my robot was not reading the stop function so it would move on in a loop as long as the button it corresponds to was pressed. After a dozen trials and errors, I put some extra brackets in the code so the computer could read the commands one at a time. This eventually solved the issue and it was a huge sigh of relief. This project was super fun and it’s taught me a lot of skills that are very useful in the future.

For my Second Milestone, I controlled two motor controllers attached to a wheel using a ps2 controller. This milestone was a pretty exciting objective to complete because it reassured my progress on my main project. I was expecting to get it done in about a week but I got it done fairly quickly. The way I did it was I connected the motors to the output pins on my L298N module (H bridge), and the module was then connected to the Arduino through IN switches and PWM pins. On the ps2 controller side, I wired the Arduino to the input pins on the ps2 controller wireless receiver (data, command, clock, and attention). I had to use 2 H bridges because each H bridge holds 2 wheels and I have 3 wheels. With this in mind, I had to split up my 2 H bridges’ power supply on a breadboard. I did it this way because of complication issues and once that worked, everything was in shape. As far as the coding went, I  finalized the code for my motors to work as well as for my Arduino to read the ps2 receiver input pins. Once I had them working separately I combined both of them together. I basically coded the motors to rotate forward or backward based on what button was pressed on the ps2 controller.

My first milestone for the Omni-directional Robot was to have one wheel work/rotate using just the Arduino code. This was a big step for me because it gave me a lot of confidence going into this project and it allowed me to have 3 working wheels and to also start working on the ps2 controller. I basically powered up a L298N module with a battery and connected the L298N’S switches and motors to the Arduino. Then I built the wheel and connected that to the H bridge (L298N) output pins. Not only did I have to do Mechanical work but Software (coding) as well. The way the coding worked was the Arduino uses a C language that interprets commands as High or Low. As explained in the video, the H bridge (L298N Module) has 4 switches in a open circuit that are opened and closed by the Arduino. I commanded those switches to be open or closed in a certain sequence for all motors using High or Low. It was also important to assign the pins to what switch I want for a specific motor.

My Starter Project is the customizable Arduino. I chose to use a fully customized Arduino using LEDs and a motion sensor. The three main components of my project are a motion sensor, an LED, and an Arduino Uno. I enjoyed this project because I was able to learn about the different electrical components and their roles in this circuit as well as how to use the Arduino.