Tidewater Community College Virginia Beach, VA

2007 ASEE Model Design Competition Honolulu, HI June 25, 2007

TCC's team made a significant design change to their robot a couple of days before the competition, switching from a dead-reckoning approach (counting wheel revolutions) to using range-finding sensors to position the robot before each basket. The new design worked well, but needed a little more fine tuning as the robot would sometimes just touch the basket or a ball would just miss the basket. With some slight improvements, the robot would likely have been a strong contender, but settled for 7^th place in the event.

Team Members: Dave Henderson (captain), James Martin, Brian Pering, Michael Foglietti, Christa Parren, Corey Houck

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

Team Members (along with Marie Planchard of SolidWorks on the far left)	A closeup of the robot during the presentation.	Corey carefully positions the robot.
Team members give a presentation before the panel of judges and the other teams.	Corey starts the robot at the judge’s signal.	The robot deploys its arms and heads for the first basket.
James Martin and judge Gen Pond watch as the robot deposits a ball in the basket	The robot reaches the opposite end of the track.	Team Photo in Honolulu
Side view of robot	Battery side view	Circuit Boards
End view	End view - closeup	Side view showing chain drive
Prototype of wheel counting circuit	Wheel revolution counter in place	Wheel revolution counter later replace by Ping distance sensors
Chain Drive	Early experiment to see if balls could be accurately launched 5 feet (or so) into a basket. Dual motor launcher.	Single motor launcher. Attempts to launch balls weren’t very successful.

Contact Paul Gordy, ASEE Model Design Competition Coordinator, at PGordy@tcc.edu for more information.