Archive for May, 2013

90% of our pathfinder project was completed. Rest 10% was testing phase. We had one day before our final presentation. Kinda happy that robot no more looks like a piece of junk. Then, there came a the biggest tornado in my life. The biggest Tsunami. The worst  horror of my life. Guess what? There was a short circuit while we were working with the robot trying to test it. I could not believe it happened and was in shock that after so much of hard work the whole thing might not work at all because there was a small mistake with electronics. There was a thick smoke and the burnt smell. I pulled the plug, and checked if arduino was dead. It was working fine. The dc motors of both rear wheels and front wheels were working fine. To the worst of all the Servos were the one who went dead. Not one but all three on the hand. I opened up the servos to check and see if there was anything I could fix, but i could not find anything. And ordering new one was out of question, since we were already out of budget. This type of accidents are kinda normal when working with projects which use lots of power source. Honestly, I never really cared about electronics . I always tried to make it just to work with project. The simplest one I could make. But after this not only I realized that electronics is a bitch and should be handled with  most care, I also realized that last minute checkups and testing should be done using a back up. Always have a backup plan. Plan B or the exit door. I hope no one else will get the same fate as this project got.

What next?Well, Every baby who tries to walk falls down in a while. But you never actually learn if you are not willing to rise again and try walking again and again until you have perfected it, you will never learn to walk. The project is not destroyed yet, although our grades might get really low. I have a whole summer ahead of us and I will try my best to work on this again and take this project to 100% success!!

“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”
― Franklin D. Rossevelt