Question: You show us all these great 1/C projects, but what goes on in the 2C year?
Answer: We give you all the tools you will need to do those great 1C projects.
In Control Systems Laboratory (ES308), we teach you how to use little computers to control your projects. These micro-computers don't have a keyboard or a mouse, and they are small enough to fit on most projects. They can be used to talk with motors and sensors. For example, check out the cart in this video. Students had to program the cart to always move at the same velocity -- like your car's cruise control.
(Work by 2/C Selby and Haley)
The computer had to read the velocity sensors on each wheel and decide what voltage to send to the motor to keep it going straight at the right speed. Seems pretty easy on flat ground, but it was required to maintain a constant speed, no matter what the terrain (carpet, smooth floor, uphill, down hill, towing a trailer, etc) . That is where the skills of the 2/C Systems Engineer are put to the test.
(Work by 2/C Lovett)
Since we didn't have a radar gun, one of the ways we measured velocity was to time how long it took to travel between two tape marks on the ground. You can see these guys were pretty pround that they got their vehicle to stop on a dime. Needless to say, they got an A.
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