ENPH 253
ENPH 253 is a 2nd year Engineering Physics course that provides an introduction to prototyping, including electrical and mechanical design and fabrication.
The course is structured as a robotics competition where students collaborate in teams of 4 to tackle a design challenge. The 2015 theme was “Pet Rescue”, which required the teams to design and build an autonomous robot to navigate an obstacle course and save 6 pets.
The first 6 weeks of the course consisted of labs and lectures that covered fundamental electronics and mechanical design, including micro-controller implementation using sensors, actuators, and control theory. After this, we had 6 weeks of build time. Raw materials including sheet metal, acrylic, and wood were provided as well as numerous prototyping tools including a waterjet cutter, laser cutter, 3D printer, and machine shop.
In the 2015 “Pet Rescue” Robot Competition, we competed against 16 teams. The challenge was to navigate an obstacle course and save 6 pets trapped inside a building within 2 minutes.
The obstacle course featured a white surface with a path of black electrical tape and two infrared beacons to help the robot navigate the course. The stuffed animal pets had magnets glued to the top of their heads. The first four pets along the path were worth 1 point each, the 5th pet was on a platform 6" tall (worth 2 points), and a 6th pet was hidden in a box filled with Styrofoam pieces (worth 3 points). A zipline from the end of the course to the starting area provided a means of escape, or the robot could turn around and exit the way it came up. As an added challenge, a “wall of fire” would appear after 1 minute, which would block the robot from leaving the upper surface.