Decisions

Explanation of what design decisions or tradeoffs were necessary during that phase

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1. Build the converter box by ourselves.

Since the robot should move around the Engineering building, we need to use the battery which is used for the motor as our main power supply for all equipments. Thus, we decides to make a converter box by ourselves and it can give us 5V and 12V interfaces.

2. Buy a strong Robot Arm

We build a robot arm in our prototype, but it is not flexible and strong enough to accomplish our decision. Thus, we choose to buy a strong one. Another reason is that one of our team member is familiar with this new robot, which will help us coding it quickly.

3. Build a platform

We want to make the arm be able to do multi[ple tasks, since the robot will be used to provide demonstration of the robotics course in the future. We need to make it stable and strong, so we build a platform outside the robot to hold the arm.

4. Choose python to do image processing

Python is really convenient and strong. The library OpenCV can help us deal with the picture captured by the camera precisely. Besides, the library pytorch is good at pattern recognition. Python can work with the Raspberry Pi.