Robotics Activity

This experiment, Audra and I tested the accuracy of human measurement in correlation to the accuracy of computer systems. We began by building the lego robots; tiny lego piece by tiny lego piece, only following direction from pictures. Once the robot was completed, we plugged USB cords in the designated spot on the robot and then to the computer’s USB port to be calculated by the LabView software. After taking the circumference of one of the robot’s wheels at 5.5 cm, we were ready to begin. We converted the 5.5 cm to meters – 5.5cm x 3.14 / 100% = .1727 m. Getting the most accurate measurement of the wheel would only benefit the rest of our results later in the experiment. After completing this calculation, we made sure all the settings matched in LegoMindstorm. We did three experiment trials, using 1 second each time for the robot’s travel time.

Our first trial started with the power measurement of 75. The robot’s power could be adjusted anywhere between 0-100. We measured .29m where LabView calculated .28. Next we adjusted the power to 25. Audra and I got a measurment of .08m where LabView was a meter less, .07m. Finally, we made the last trial at a power of 85 and measured .34m, much more than LabView with .32m

The formula we used to get the percentage of error = 100% (distance measured – distance LabView calculated) / (avg. of distance measured and distance of LabView)

and % error  = 100{(Dm – Dl)/ [(Dm+Dl/2)]}

Trial 1

Dm= .29               Dl=.28

%Error = 100 {(.29-.28)/ [(.29+.28)/2] }

Error = % 3.5

Trial 2

Dm= .08              Dl=.07 %

%Error = 100 {(.07-.)/ [(.08+.07)/2] }

Error = % 0.9

Trial 3

Dm= .34               Dl=.32

%Error = 100 {(.34-.32)/ [(.34+.32)/2] }

Error = % 6.06