Following our successful pool test, we confirmed that the new serial communications system works as intended, and both Arduino systems are operating properly. With this milestone achieved, our next steps involve migrating the system into our ROS2 repository and reorganizing the code structure. While our current structure does abstract sensor functions into separate files, it …
The electrical team has hit the ground running this semester! We started with wrapping up some of the projects from last year. The serial thruster code is finally working. After connecting a separate Arduino Mega directly to the ESCs, we realized the issue was either the thruster Arduino, PWM driver, or connections between the two. …
Within these past few weeks, our current projects have reached major milestones with their progress! For the groups who’ve been modeling our electrical stacks on wood boards, the big stack team has entirely finished the battery connectors, kill switches, motor control/ESC, and started to add in sensors. The mini stack team has not only finished …
We had our first pool test of the year! New members got to see the robot in the water for the first time (they even got to see some barrel rolls). Of course, this pool test was not without some drama. The power cable from the battery capsule to the main stack, through a combination …
With the school year starting back up, we decided to continue the electrical team’s onboarding project from the previous year and augment it with a new challenge. This year, our challenge for the teams was to create either the loudest sound or have the most creative use of sound using piezoelectric speakers. With roughly 30 …
On the first day of March, water leaked into the robot and destroyed many components. We spent a lot of time after this resoldering and re-epoxying different parts of the robot. We also ruggedized the electrical ports in order to prevent future leakages. This is when we decided to implement the temperature and humidity sensor. …
The CS team is quite self-sufficient when it comes to running pool tests. New to this semester, we’ve greatly increased the number of pool tests we’re running. Our goal is three per week: Friday morning, Saturday, and Sunday. So, it was not great news to get a (literal) wakeup call on a Friday morning. As …
One issue we faced often last semester was that the ports for the ethernet cable we used for our tether were corroding. Additionally, we used a PoE switch to power the cameras on the robot, but this would get very hot very fast, so we wanted to switch to another method to power the cameras. …
Our robot uses three different sensors to keep an eye on its internal and external climate and other factors. The first sensor we use is the voltage sensor. This sensor constantly prints the onboard voltage of the robot. This sensor is connected to the same arduino as the pressure sensor. We use the pressure sensor …
In robotics, the dance of problem-solving takes on a rhythm akin to a complex symphony, where each instrument must perform in perfect harmony. This past year, I had the privilege of orchestrating a project that sought to interpret acoustics using a robotic system equipped with hydrophones. Our goal was simple: develop a method for accurately …
At the beginning of the year, recruiting is very important for Duke Robotics. In years past, our introductory meetings have entailed an onboarding process to introduce students to their respective subteams. For electrical, we’ve always been combined with the CS subteam on an introduction to ROS with Turtlesim. While important to electrical, we decided to …
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