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ISAE-ENSMA Ensmasteel association edited this page Jan 17, 2022 · 8 revisions

Welcome to the Ensmasteel wiki!

Introduction

This wiki stands for whether an activity report and a real wiki to improve your skills during Ensmasteel's projects ! do not ever hesitate to refer to this wiki for any kind of issue you may encouter during work on Robots. Moreover, it provides you a lot of advice to do some tasks like electronics, basic robot configuration, CATIA design, project Kick-off etc etc.

Presentation of the association

The Ensmasteel association is part of the ISAE-ENSMA huge panel of associations. Its goal is to promote the students capacities and work during the year to create an assemble a complete robot system. This robot is especially designed to compete during the French Robotics Cup, which expectation and regulation change every year. Though, the students have to re design a quasi complete new robot, from initial kick-off to CATIA design and electronics.

In this wiki, all students of every year have left their knowledge and experience through years into the association. You can refer to their advice and their previous work to help you going through yours.

Table of content

Project kick off

One of the most important phase of the project is the kick-off phase. During this phase, you will organize all the project and its progress during the year. Remember that the cup rapidly comes out as it stands during the Ascension week-end in May.

Here will be all the tasks you must think about during this phase. Some tips and advice will also be displayed along the next sub-sections.

The first things you have to think about will be explicated below ! Enjoy the reading.

What to do first

  • First of all, you need to know how much people will work on project. This allows you to correctly organize meetings and the further tasks.
  • Next, you have to conscientiously read the cup regulation that is published in its first release during September. It will be published in its final release at the end of October.

This preliminary steps will ensure you to go in the right direction to build the best robot you can do !

Set up correctly the project calendar

After the first tasks required by this kind of project, you'll have to set up a correct calendar to ensure that you and your teammates respect the dead-lines established. Don't be too kind on deadlines, its better to work with a little pressure along the year than working with a huge one at the end. For that you can use any kind of software you want, like Trello, Slack or even the GitHub project page included in this repo ! Use it to detail tasks, and their accomplishment.

The main work domains

There are 3 main workflows during the year, including some other sub-domains that require less time but not less investment :

  • The CATIA design that defines all the robot mechanics, and the construction of the robot itself.
  • The electronic inside the robot. This step is really crucial, because a bad designed electronic can screw up all the project and the robot goal. Please take a particular attention to that step.
  • The code and software to control the robot.
  • Additional workflows
    • Building the training table
    • Correctly setting up all the project
    • Fill up correctly this GitHub Wiki and activity report with your own experience during the year, especially on electronics and software.

Now you know the main domains of work. Though you can correctly make teams and really kick-off the project !

Building the training table

With the Cup regulation publication is brought some informations about the competition table and all its components. Additionnaly, there is some information about what to build before getting the pvc training mat. You may prefer let some beginners to do this task, that will enable you to concentrate on bigger tasks like CATIA design and electronics, and correctly lead your team and teammates.

Reflexion about CATIA design

TODO by the CATIA team

The Electronics inside the Robot

After primarly set up the robot design and mechanics, you can have a look to the electronic inside the robot that will command all the actuators and handle the informations. This step is a huge one. Be aware of what you want to do and do not EVER do what crosses your mind without thinking about it.

This step includes several substeps that includes :

  • Handle the power supply of the robot
  • Handle the communication between bot and users
  • Handle the electronic card within the bot
  • Handle the actuators and sensors
  • Handle the trajectory and cumputation within the bot

To help you, a complete wiki page can help you handle this step confidently (TODO : créer la page d'électronique et la documenter). In this page you will find all the documentation set up for electronics, example of circuits and the documentation about already set up circuits (like the power supply for example). Do not hesitate any second more before consultating it !

Last advice but not least : remember that a good electronnics ensure you a good robot behaviour and not inconsistent ones, like non predictive acceleration, overheating, crashes, etc. The electronics is maybe the most important part of your robot.

The software

The main intelligence of your robot. The software declares what your bot have to do during the matches. This part is also very important during the project, because its kind of coomplex and may requires an adaptation time. In fact, most part ofo the code is already written, and you'll have too adapt it to your use. That implies yoou'll have to read, understand and re-use already written code. And it also implies that every change you make has to be documpented. In that way, the next project team will have minor issues to recode, read and adapt your own one.

You can find further informations on the dedicated documentation code page which includes advice, good pratices, tutorials and more.

TODO during the project

While you and your mates are working on the next robot, it may be difficult to see what to do next or where you can be useful. The first and most important thing to do is think about the complete robot :

  • the actual rules of the cup
  • the actions your robot will have to perform during matches
  • divide the participants into small sub-teams, each with a clear objective for example the mechanical design of the robot, or the electronics. If you work with more than 4 people on the same thing, it will fast become a real mess to do a great and clean job.
  • define a clear planning for the entire project, with absolute deadlines and a little temporal margin to anticipate problems

The Cup

Help and advice

As you see the entire documentation and wiki are set up in english. That's because every documentation you may find on the Internet will be written in english and you have to get used to read and understand technical docs like this one. Furthermore it can help you in your future work, because every client in aeronautical and widely industrial world will talk with you in this language.

Help

For some additionnal help on each part of the robot project, do not ever hesitate to talk to teachers and technical experts of the Pprime laboratory. They can give you precious advice and great expertise espacially on electronics and mechanics inside the robot.

For some pro tips and special links, go see this page : //TODO set up the useful link page