M.E.T. – Martian Emergency Team

Recent Posts

Software Architecture for Small Robots – Part 1

3 November 2019

There is a lot happening in a robot’s “brain”: processing inputs coming in from various sensors at different rates, low-level outputs to control motors or other actuators, possibly combined with feedback loops. And there is the logic that actually decides what to do, keeping track of everything, maybe making simple plans and executing them. Sometimes it’s just a direct reaction to inputs (e.g. left motor power = some function of distance values), sometimes it’s much higher level, e.g. “now that we’ve visited the red corner, go back, start turning and look for something blue”. Even if you don’t worry too much about “architecture”, the question will come up eventually: how do you put all this together in software?

M.E.T. – Part III

22 October 2019

In 2018 we had a crazy idea: we decided to compete at Pi Wars for the first time, as Mars Exploration Team, and built our first robot, modelled after the Mars rovers, with four individually powered and steerable wheels. It was a fairly complicated design for a first experiment. It mostly worked, but it was somewhat unfinished, and we failed at most of the challenges.