Dawson Virtual Lab

# About

The Dawson Robotics Navigation Challenge is a collaborative event where students work in teams to find creative solutions to a navigation challenge. Students participate as part of a course work independent study or just for interest to learn and apply the basics of engineering robotics using the Arduino microelectronics platform. The event is accessible to all regardless of background or prior knowledge.

The themed challenge is Arduino-based and will involve the construction of a micro-robot designed to perform a task. Student teams (minimum 2, maximum 4) will be provided with a kit of components. See instructions below.

The practice lines and maze will be set up until Thursday May 9 at 4:30PM. The final course will be available for testing Friday May 10 from 10AM. Official trials will begin Friday at 3:00PM.

# The Navigation Challenge


For the navigation challenge, teams are building state machines, robots that will use two methods of control:

  1. Autonomous control: line following with a 5-channel IR sensor.
  2. Manual control: maze navigation with an IR-remote transmitter and receiver.

The diagram below show a schematic of the features of the navigation course.

Challenge course

Goal: Starting on the line from point A, use line following to reach the maze, switch to manual remote control and navigate to point B in the shortest possible time.

The practice lines and maze will be set up until Thursday at 5:30PM. The final course will be available for testing Friday May 10, from 10AM. Official trials will begin at 3:00PM.

# Rules

Teams will be given 2 official runs to record their best time. The top 2 teams will have a 3rd trial to try to improve their best time. Shortest time wins.

  1. Teams are not allowed to touch their robots during a trial except when indicated by a judge.
  2. When a robot loses contact with the line following portion of the navigation challenge the trial is over.
  3. The transition to manual remote control occurs when the robot leaves the last portion of the white line.
  4. During manual control, robots are penalized 2 seconds for contact with taped "walls" at the judges' discretion. If the robot passes completely through a wall, the team must place the robot to the nearest location where this occurred indicated by the judge before continuing.

# Information about the control sensors


  1. Line following: 5-Way Infrared Line Tracking Sensor Module. See this tutorial of another implementation of line following on a robot using DC motors for some inspiration.
  2. Manual control: WL-110 Infrared IR Receiver + Wireless Remote Control. See this code repository for example code.

Top team will win a prize! Good luck 😃