Reflection

Completing my Capstone project has truly helped me grow as a person. The Capstone Project forced me to think in new ways and apply things I learned to real-life problem-solving. A majority of my project was independent work. I was presented with a set of parts and I somehow had to turn it all into a moving device without any instructions whatsoever. This is where my critical thinking and creativity was used. I was forced to think of how to build something out of what I was given while still being creative and think in a new way in order to get it to work. Communication and collaboration were at a minimum for my specific project. The only communication necessary was telling my mentor when I was able to come in to work or what the plan for our next meeting was. Collaboration was very minimum as well. My mentor simply provided me with suggestions or advice as I constructed the kits instead of simply telling me what to do because the point of the kits was to get me to figure them out for myself in order to see how I think individually.

The Capstone Project has helped me develop into the person I most likely want to be in the future. I was able to get hands-on experience with robotic parts, tools, and programming. I was forced to problem-solve on-site without any help. I was forced to think independently and creatively in order to get all of my kits to work properly. My professional social skills also improved. Sending professional emails or making appropriate phone calls no longer make me as nervous as they did before the Capstone Project. Completing the Capstone Project has definitely solidified what I want to pursue as a career in the future.

The main challenges I faced were time management and working independently with minimal assistance. Breaking my ankle in the middle of the semester really put a time constraint on my project. I was unable to drive myself around or meet with my mentor because we did not believe having a wheelchair in the workshop was safe. This took up almost a month and a half of my available mentor time so when I started to meet up my mentor afterwards, I made sure to put in multiple hours per day and make sure I was actually accomplishing something each meeting. I had to make sure I was working harder since time was much shorter than I had planned on earlier. I spent almost every day immediately after school in my mentor's workshop. Working independently was also quite challenging. I usually prefer working by myself, but once a problem arises I like to have a second person's opinion or suggestion in order to help me solve the problem. However, with this project, I was forced to solve things for myself. My mentor was only allowed to give me limited advice while I was forced to figure the rest out for myself. This became really frustrating after awhile. I became irritated because I really couldn't solve one of my problems or think of any other solutions. I got to the point where I simply just wanted my mentor to help me out and solve the problem for me, but of course, he refused. Once I realized that I truly had no other way around the problem besides sitting there and thinking it through for myself, I was eventually able to solve it. It took several trial and error methods, and several more hours, but I was able to do it. Working independently really helped increase my patience and my ability to stay calm when a project becomes frustrating.

The Capstone Project has definitely benefited me. I feel even more excited to study Computer Engineering in college and to pursue it as a career. I now have some experience with electronics and robotics that I can use to my advantage. My problem-solving skills have improved immensely and my brain is now open to thinking in different ways to solve problems. After my Senior Capstone Project, I feel like I've grown as a person, and am now ready to learn more about electronics and robotics in college.

Mentor Hours 10

Today I continued to program and configure my robot to do different tasks. First, I programmed my robot to simply roll back and forth. Then I learned how to make it turn left and right. The more complicated programs required me to combine all 4 directions with different durations in order to create shapes. I spent several hours just learning different ways to program directions into the robot. Instead of individually listing each direction, I learned to group them together or shorten the coding by putting the code in a loop so it simply repeats itself a certain number of times. There were also several short hand codes that I was able to use. With all of the different codes and instructions it became difficult for me to remember which codes did which or how they were supposed to combine. I spent extra hours just redoing some programming to try and help me memorize the different commands.

Lastly, I installed infrared sensors onto the Boe-Bot. These sensors use infrared light to avoid obstacles. This programming was the longest and most complicated for me. It involved a lot of "IF" statements. Before combining the sensors and movement, I first had to test the infrared sensors and make sure they worked properly. In order to do so, I reinstalled the red LED lights so that whenever an object was detected by the sensors, the LED would light up. Once I was sure the sensors worked properly, I then began the long process of programming the robot to move different ways when an object is detected. This was the most challenging part for me. A simple typo or mix-up of numbers caused the Boe-Bot to just sit there and wiggle back and forth. If the sensors weren't pointed the right direction or the wrong resistor was installed, then objects would either be detected too soon or too late. I had to troubleshoot a lot for this part. But now my Boe-Bot can avoid obstacles, although it is still a little shaky if the obstacles are too close together to each other.

Hours earned: 7 hours

Total hours: 28 hours

Mentor Hours 9

Yesterday I constructed my Boe-Bot from scratch and began testing out all of the parts using the PBASIC Stamp Editor. Before putting together all of the parts, I had to test each of the components separately so I could troubleshoot any problems individually before it was all one big piece, making it harder to identify the problem. I installed the BASIC Stamp 2 Module onto my board and tested out the electricity flow with some basic red LEDs and resistors. Afterwards I had to test each servo motor separately and make sure they spun both ways. I then had to center each servo with a screwdriver, making sure it stopped turning when it was supposed to.

After all of the testing, I then began putting together my Boe-Bot. Constructing the robot was a lot harder than I expected. The tiny parts rolled away and made things difficult. It took me a few hours to finish putting the Boe-Bot together. Once I had installed the motors and attached the board, I then attached the wheels and now my Boe-Bot was literally ready to roll!

I tested out each wheel individually again and then installed a Start/Indicator Circuit in the form of a Piezospeaker. This tiny speaker makes a small beeping noise at the start of any signal it receives. So before executing any programs or instructions, it makes a beeping sound. This is useful for making sure the robot's batteries are not dying. It can now alert me when the batteries are starting to lose power.

The most challenging part of assembling my Boe-Bot was having to read every page of its book carefully. Skimming is not an option because you really have to understand all of the concepts of each section before moving on to the next because they all build upon each other. Each new programming command gets reused or combined with another one and it's easy to get mixed up. There are commands within commands and you to make sure you understand what each command is telling the robot to do individually before you can combine them and tell the robot to do both things at once, or at different times. I'm fairly new to programming so memorizing all of the commands was the most challenging part so far.

Today I am going to finish programming the robot and adding its sensors on it so it

Hours Earned: 5 hours

Total Hours: 21 hours

Mentor Hours 8

Today I got to work with the Boe-Bot! The Boe-Bot is a basic robot kits that a majority of beginners in robotics first work with to get them started. Here is a fully constructed Boe-Bot that my mentor already had on display in his workshop:

I'll get to construct my own Boe-Bot from scratch later on once I receive my kit.

Since I don't have my own kit yet, I started working with the software that comes with the Boe-Bot. The book that came with the Boe-Bot is actually quite thick, but has really simple instructions and explanations that made it easy to learn the coding. The book wasn't very intimidating once I actually started reading it. I learned how to program the bot to do certain things such as blink its LEDs or turn only one wheel at a time. I was introduced to the BASIC coding language that the Boe-Bot uses to receive instructions. I was able to learn different functions such as "DEBUG", "PAUSE", "LOOP", "DEC", "CR", "PULSOUT", and "DO". I think this was the coolest thing I've done so far. It was awesome just typing in a few lines into a computer and pressing F9 to make the robot do what I've told it to do. I even got the Boe-Bot to do math! It was really fun getting to program a robot for the first time.

Hours Earned: 2 hours

Total Hours: 16 hours

Mentor Hours 7

Yesterday I got to start working with the Snap Circuits. I simply sat down with the kit and its booklet and starting from experiment number one. I made several different circuits.

The circuits either made an LED or a small lightbulb light up, or it made different siren or laser type noises through the speaker. The Snap Circuits were extremely easy to use and build with. The booklet included pictures as well as short paragraphs that explained how or why something worked the way it did. The easy building made it easier for me to focus on the concept instead of the construction. It helped me understand why the bulb would only light up if I put a certain piece this way or that way, or how the speaker made different noises depending on how much current and resistance there was. I think playing with the Snap Circuits was really fun. It was kind of like electronic Legos. It was a nice way for my mentor to introduce me into electronics without making me use an actual circuit board at first.

Hours Earned: 2 hours

Total Hours: 14 hours

Mentor Hours 6

On Friday I met with my mentor for only an hour. Since I finished the puzzle solving kits we just discussed what projects I could do next. I told him I wanted to work with the Boe-Bot, one of the most common starting robot kits. He also said I could do some experiments with the Snap Circuits as well as the "adult" version of Snap Circuits. I went home with the Boe-Bot book and the book for the basic electronic circuit kit to look over the weekend.

Hours Earned: 1 hour

Total Hours: 12 hours

Mentor Hours 5

Today I went back to the workshop and finished making the balloon-powered race car. There was one more piece that required glue that I was unable to put together yesterday so I had to spend time waiting for the glue to dry. Eventually I was able to put all of the pieces together and create my race car:

The main difficulty I had was making the hole for the balloon tube the correct size. First it was too small, then too big, and just plain difficult. Afterwards, the wheels became a huge issue. The wheels that were included are only made out of thick, index card-like paper so they're very thin and not very stable. The natural wobbling motion that the wheels did constantly caused the car to slow down a lot. I spent a majority of my time tinkering with the car to try and get it to roll straight and farther. Once I had done all I could think to do, the car still only went about 5 or 6 feet, but I considered it a success because my first run only went about 3 feet. Plus, watching my car roll for just a little bit was pretty cool knowing that I had made it from almost scratch.

I think my mentor gave me these puzzle solving kits to get me to think harder and in different ways. The kits definitely did their job and forced me to think. Both projects seemed simple conceptually, but once I got started things got complicated quickly. I think these kits were a nice way to get me started. Next visit, my mentor is going to get me started on projects that now involve real electronic parts or some experiments with the Snap Circuits.

Hours Earned: 2 hours

Total Hours: 11 hours

Mentor Hours 4

Today I went back and began constructing the race car kit. This kit was a lot more complicated and had a lot more supplies included. It took me a lot longer to figure out a design this time too. Because of the complexity of the kit I was unable to finish the race car in just one sitting. I also had to glue pieces of wood together which needed to dry overnight.

I spent the first half of my visit basically playing around with all the different parts and trying to come up with a design I think would work. Then I spent the second half gluing wood and cutting holes again. In two hours I only managed to create the separate components of the race car.

I put together the basic frame of the race car, each set of wheels and the piece that would hold the balloon. That was all I was able to accomplish today since the glue needs to dry. Tomorrow I'll put together all of the parts and finish the race car. This activity really forces me to think about design and mechanics because the concept of a balloon-powered car seems really simple, but it's just turning it into a reality that gets complicated.

Hours Earned: 2 hours
Total Hours: 9 hours

Mentor Hours 3

Today I finished reading the two books my mentor gave me to read about the Snap Circuit kit. One of the books was the Student Guide and the other was the Experiment Handbook that contained the instructions for the 101 experiments possible with the kit. I found both of the books to be extremely informative and easy to understand. The kit is labeled for ages 8-108, and I fully enjoyed the fact that it's pretty much for anyone. The books were full of colorful pictures and diagrams and simple definitions of key terms which made everything much less intimidating. The authors also included both real life examples as well as examples from the Snap Circuit kit. Most of the information in the books I had learned last year in Mr. Trautman's physics class, but it was a nice easy review for me. The books made all the information much more interesting than a normal textbook does. I remember I honestly did not like the electricity section during physics class, but this review book helped change my opinion of it by making it a lot less intimidating and a lot easier to grasp the concepts. I think it was a nice way to re-introduce me into electronics and the basic science of electricity, batteries, resistors, switches, and receptors.

After school, I went back to mentor's workshop and began constructing one of the puzzle solving kits. I began with the balloon-powered hover craft and it actually took a lot longer than I expected. I spent a little over two hours constructing this:

It's simply just a piece of styrofoam with a hole in the middle of it, a tube with a balloon attached to one end inside the hole, and an index card wrapped and taped around the whole thing.

It was such a simple design, but it took so much longer to make than anticipated. In my head, the design was pretty simple. I just had to poke a hole, stick a tube in and attach the balloon. Cutting a specific hole into a piece of styrofoam was much harder than I thought it would be. With just a wooden pencil, a pair of scissors, and an Xacto knife at my disposal, I went to work to make my hole.

After the two hours that I spent just making the general design I had in my head, I spent another hour trying to modify it in order to get it to hover a little higher and a little longer with my mentor coaching me through it. He advised me to add the paper skirt in order to trap a volume of air underneath the whole thing in order to get it to float more. After that, it was a matter of observing how the hover craft moved and trying to find the individual imbalances and either trimming that point or adding weight to it.

Although, this particular project didn't specifically relate to robotics, I understand that my mentor knows that he can't just simply throw me into the field of robotics without first making sure I understand the basic electronic components and the basic physics and mechanics of how things move or work together to get a job done. This puzzle solving kit, really helped me review my physics and understand the mechanics of how different parts come together to create one structure. On my next visit I will attempt to put together the balloon-powered race car.

Hours Earned: 4 hours

Total Hours: 7 hours

Mentor Hours 2

I went back to my mentor's workshop and he gave me some starter kits to get me started. The two basic kits aren't necessarily robotic, but the kit basically provides you with various supplies that you have to figure out how to turn into a balloon-powered race car or hover craft. They come with instructions, but you're only allowed to look at them if you're truly stumped. The "ages 10 and up" sticker was very misleading. Although my mentor told me not to actually start building it, he told me to look at all the pieces and come up with a list of tools I would need to construct it. It was a lot harder than I thought. I sat there for at least an hour and spent 30 minutes looking at two kits trying to imagine a race car or hover craft in my mind. He explained to me that working with these kits would help me understand the mechanical part of robotics better and would help him get a better understanding of how I think.

On top of the two puzzle kits, my mentor also introduced me to electronic snap circuits. It's a beginner's circuit board that uses snap buttons like the ones found on clothes in order to introduce the idea of connecting pieces of a circuit board together without having to deal with the tiny parts of an actual circuit board. He explained that although the snap circuits are usually meant for children, some colleges that teach high school level electronics courses use them. So I didn't feel as bad. Plus, the large pieces and variety of colors made the idea of working with circuit boards for the first time look much less intimidating. I did not get to actually start working with the snap circuits, but my mentor gave me two small books about the snap circuits and the projects we could do with them to read over the weekend. There's actually a lot to do with one simple kit. He's slowly easing me into working with actual electronic parts. Next meeting, he will begin helping me construct the race car and hover craft and give me a project from the snap circuits to take home.

Hours Earned: 2 hours
Total Hours: 3 hours

Mentor Hours 1

I met with my mentor for the first time for one hour. He discussed the basics of robotics and explained to me how he got involved with creating his own hobby shop. He told me the story of how his son was the one who really got him into it even more. After showing me around the shop, we began talking about what projects I'd want to complete. I understood that I wouldn't be able to accomplish too big of a project and still get a full understanding of robotics in just one semester. He showed me the starter robot kits that I could take home and try and also offered to come up with a new one if I wasn't interested in something so basic. I left with all the information I needed. Now all I needed to do was email him again with what project I'd like to start.

Hours Earned: 1 hour
Total Hours: 1 hour