27404 Parallax Inc, 27404 Datasheet - Page 81

• Manufacturer Part Number: 27404
• Description: COMPETITION RING FOR SUMOBOT
• Manufacturer: Parallax Inc

Specifications of 27404

• Accessory Type: Hobby and Education
• Product: Microcontroller Accessories
• Lead Free Status / RoHS Status: Contains lead / RoHS non-compliant
• For Use With/related Products: SumoBot®
• Lead Free Status / RoHS Status: Lead free / RoHS Compliant, Contains lead / RoHS non-compliant

Chapter 3: EEPROM Tricks and Program Tips · Page 77
Chapter #3: Sensor Management
The SumoBot's sensors are critical components to its performance in the Sumo ring. To
get the most out of the sensors that come in the SumoBot Robot Competition Kit, it's
important to have a better understanding of how the sensors work. Understanding each
sensor's strengths, weaknesses and pitfalls will be important ingredients to your SumoBot
strategies. It's also important to know how to write code to calibrate sensors, as well as
code to make them self-calibrating.
Preventing sensor measurements from taking too much time is important, as is preventing
them from taking too much memory. Beyond that, storing each sensor's reading in a way
that makes it easier for the program to make decisions can help you translate your
strategies into PBASIC programs. Sensor subroutines should also follow the coding
conventions introduced in the previous chapter. That way, you can mix and match
different sensors on the same robot with minimal difficulty integrating them into your
sumo wrestling code.
SENSORS - TESTING, TUNING, AND STORING THE RESULTS
This chapter will take a closer look at how the SumoBot's IR detectors work. In addition
to the basics, reliability testing, IR interference testing, and procedures for tuning IR
receiver sensitivity will be introduced. Side-mounted IR object detectors will also be
added to give your SumoBot peripheral vision.
This chapter will also take a closer look at how QTIs work and how PBASIC code for
making the QTIs self-calibrating works. In addition, techniques that limit the QTI
measurement times to prevent servo slowdown are also introduced.
By the end of the chapter, your SumoBot will be sporting four IR detectors, two QTIs,
and a pushbutton. You'll find that some of the techniques for storing sensor results that
this chapter introduces are very useful for future navigation decisions. Techniques
introduced in Chapter 2 for the naming of temporary variables and placing code in
sections will be revisited here as all the sensor readings are combined into a single
program.