Designing and building robots

The image shows an educational wheeled robot with its parts numbered. Identify each part and explain what function it serves within the robot (structure, movement, control or perception).

Name the basic parts of a simple mobile robot and state which element of a control system (sensor, controller or actuator) each one corresponds to.

Your robot must follow a black line painted on the white classroom floor. Reason what sensor it needs, where you would place it, and what the program should do every time the sensor strays from the line.

The flowchart in the figure shows the program for an obstacle-avoiding robot. Describe the complete behaviour of the robot in your own words and reason what it would do if the distance sensor were covered with insulating tape.

Name three real-world tasks currently carried out by robots (domestic cleaning, factory welding, warehouse delivery) and reason what sensors each one needs for its task.

A robot has two drive wheels, one on each side. Explain what each wheel must do (spin forwards, backwards, or stop) for the robot to move forward in a straight line, reverse, and spin on the spot to the right.

Put these steps for building and programming a robot in order, and justify the sequence: upload the program to the board, assemble the chassis, test and calibrate, connect sensors and motors to the board, define what the robot should do.

Your robot must turn 90 degrees accurately using its two wheels. Explain why the command "turn for one second" is unreliable (battery level, surface, friction) and what additional information would improve the turn.

A robot moves forward in a straight line for only a few metres and then gradually veers to the left. Analyse at least three possible causes (mechanical, electrical, or software-related) and explain what test you would carry out to rule out each one.

Design the weight distribution of a mobile robot: where would you place the battery (the heaviest component) and why does its position affect stability and drive-wheel traction?

A line-following robot skids and flies off course on sharp bends. Propose two improvements, one mechanical and one in the software, and explain how each one works.

Design a robot to distribute leaflets along the school corridors: describe the chassis, sensors, actuators and general movement algorithm, and justify each choice considering the real environment (people, junctions, obstacles).

A team is programming a line-follower robot with speed control and ultrasonic obstacle detection. In a block-based programming environment, they have nested conditionals with fixed pauses ("wait 50 ms"), which causes the robot to react late and veer off the track if it exceeds 0,2 m/s. Explain technically why typical block-based sequential programming causes this latency and processor blocking issue. Justify what technical advantages migrating the program to text-based code (such as C++/Arduino) using non-blocking timing (with millis()) or interrupts offers, and reason how the control structure changes to resolve the issue.

Design a robot to collect tennis balls from the school court: chassis, sensors, actuators, and general search and collection algorithm. Identify the three most critical design decisions and justify them.

A robot with a single front distance sensor gets "trapped" in corners, oscillating between two walls. Analyse why this behaviour occurs and propose an algorithm improvement (recording recent turns, introducing turns of different angles).