Third Place Tidewater Community College Virginia Beach, VA

2001 ASEE Model Design Competition Albuquerque, NM June 25, 2001

TCC's car  turned out to be much more complicated that originally planned.  It featured 8 infrared sensors, each of which closed a relay shorting a resistor when the sensor passed over the tape.  This changed the resistance seen by a 555 timer configured as a pulse generator used to control a steering servo (which turns as the pulse width varies).  As a result, 8 steering positions were available corresponding to the 8 sensors "seeing" the black tape.  Extra circuits had to be added to handle crossing the black lines on the track and going over the cracks in the plywood.  Finally, a mercury switch was added to detect when the vehicle started on the downhill home stretch.  This switch started an adjustable timer that killed the drive motor and, hopefully, stopped the car within the Stop Area.  The car performed as designed in Albuquerque to capture 3rd Place in the competition!

Team Members: Robert Sereon (captain), Justin Taylor (presenter), Craig Byl, Joe Concepcion, Randy Woods, Brett Byers, Craig Speed, Gordon Burr, Faith Wood

Faculty Advisors: Paul E. Gordy, PE (PGordy@tcc.edu) Steve M. Ezzell, PE (SEzzell@tcc.edu)

Paul Gordy, Justin Taylor, Craig Byl, Robert Sereno, and Steve Ezzell (left to right)	Justin starts the car during the practice session.	The team does some emergency soldering after discovering a problem during the practice session.
Right Side View	Front View	Top View
A mercury switch was used to detect when the car started downhill to the finish line.	Craig Byl accepts the 3rd Place Award	TCC team members rejoice as the car makes its first successful turn on their home track.
An early prototype of TCC's car	Craig and Rob soldering sensor circuits	Justin and Rob test a breadboarded version of the steering circuit as advisor Steve Ezzell looks on.