Wallace and Grommit

Our problem:

Design and build a device that can deliver a person from a bed on the 2nd floor to the seat at the kitchen table on the 1st floor. The system should be activated by the rising sun (simulated by a flashlight).

Basic Requirements of Robot Design:

. The device used to transport the mini Wallace must not be touching it at the end of the challenge.
. The house must include a bed on the second floor.
. Mini Wallace should land in the chair, not touching the floor.
. Extra credit: have jam hit mini Wallace's face while sitting on the chair.

Our Solution:

We built a device that worked like an elevator. As the platform on the second floor lowers, it placed mini Wallace directly into his chair. On the other end of the house, we designed a hook-like mechanism that is made to fling jam, a block of lego, right onto mini Wallace's face.

Programming:

The mechanism that the main inventor designed needed to use not only the basic touching sensors, but also a light sensor because of the situation of this problem. Inspired by the Wallace and Gromit animation, the platform Wallace rests upon is in actuality the bed, which at the break of dawn is activated to tilt to slide him down into his chair (strangely with a pair of pants for him to slide into). Thus, a light sensor was a mandatory requirement for the design.

First the light sensor was programmed, with a power level installed into the programming. This way, it would not activate under the normal lighting of the classroom, and required a powerful level of brightness to activate (ex. flashlight). Upon its activation, the motor powering the elevator component of the mechanism would begin to descend, tilting the platform. At that moment, the first touch sensor programmed into the mechanism would be activated, and a program delay would thus begin to countdown. This then allows Wallace to slide down from the platform and into the chair. Once the time runs out, the elevator platform begins to ascend and "disappear" from the view of the room until it touches the second touch sensor. Upon tapping that touch sensor, it stops the elevator and activates the second component of the mechanism.

The second component of this mechanism is the catapult system which held the jam that would be thrown into Wallace's face. Designed on the other side of the first floor platform, its trajectory was "calculated." When the second touch sensor is pressed, the program in the catapult system is activated. Given a time delay, it propels the jam (lego block) from its arm right into Wallace. This then ends the program and ends the purpose of this mechanism's design.

The Result:

Our design successfully placed mini Wallace right into his chair. As the platform raised back up, the hook flung the jam, lego, dead onto his face. He was not a happy camper. =] .




For those in the class, we ALL KNOW who exclaimed when the elevator component went back up (cough cough STEVE). And sure enough, the poor mini Wallace did get hit in the face . . . a lot, I wouldn't be surprised if he was still smelling the stuff after cleaning off, hard to get it out of the nose. ;3 Nevertheless, this proved to be successful.