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Setting threshold high
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Bot Overview
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setting threshold low
Inspiration
Caltech Dining Services values the student body, and thus wants to ensure each student has an opportunity to put berries on their waffles. To this end, we have created a robot that measures the number of berries in a clear cup and empties the contents of the cup if the cup is too full.Our project ensures that no other member of the Caltech community can take unfair advantage of another member by creating an objective judge of how many berries one can take.
What it does
This robot uses computer vision to measure roughly how full a cup is. If the cup is too full, the platform the cup is resting on tilts, emptying the contents of the cup into a bowl. The cup must rest on the platform for at least 5 seconds for more accurate measurements of cup fullness.
How we built it
The robot itself is constructed from cardboard, a bamboo skewer, and a bowl. A Raspberry Pi inside the box reads data from the webcam and reads signals from the Arduino regarding the Acceptable Berry Threshold, set by a potentiometer. Then, if the amount of berries detected exceeds the threshold, the Pi sends a signal to the Arduino to display a message on the LCD and rotate a microservo, dumping the contents of the cup.
Challenges we ran into
The greatest challenge we ran into is the microservo. There unfortunately were no servo horns available, so we had to bodge together a method for attaching the cardboard cam to the shaft. This means the servo tends to slip, leaving the platform in the down position when the cup is too heavy. As such, the demonstration will only be a proof-of-concept, using a cup covered with black electrical tape to represent a cup full of berries.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We made a device that works based on vision processing and consistently detects whether there are berries in a cup. We are proud of how well it works and how simple it is to use.
What we learned
We learned how to work with hardware in a time constrained schedule.
What's next for Berry Robot
We can extend this concept to other CDS foods with limited availability.
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