Today was much MUCH more productive and exciting. We discovered some quirks regarding why the robot was not able to follow the line. A few improvements in the program include changing up the power of each motor (wheel) when it turns. It seemed that we did well with turning left around the track, but not right. As the light sensor followed the edge of the tape/floor boundary it would cross over the 1" span of the tape before it could correct for actually being on the tape. Once the sensor found the floor again it would act accordingly, but in the opposite of the desired direction because it was on the "inside" boundary of the tape instead of the "outside". Our new line follow program is based on two readings from the light sensor, >50% or <50%. This is a pretty crude and rough follow program, but it works and so far is pretty consistent. Check this video of our success!
Now that we have this line follow program working we are back to our Bluetooth communication challenge. How to get a second robot to follow our first robot. Before, the first robot was sensing the amount of light on a 5-point scale. It would then send that number: 1-5 to the follow robot which would then translate that number back into a specific command to the left and right motors. At this point we are working to convert the current light sensor readings (simple light vs dark) into a numerical output in order for the Bluetooth message to be sent and received in the same way as before.
Here is a good look at the line follow program without a Bluetooth send command:
As the end of the day approaches we are only able to get our following robot to turn in circles. This is not all bad: 1) they are talking 2) at least it is moving when given a signal. With a little tweaking and hopefully no setbacks we should be able to iron out these kinks on Monday.
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