by Harshal
Has there ever been a time when something was so frustrating, you were about to start pulling hair out of your head? Well that happened to the BOTSquad when we were using the gyro sensor. Shortly after starting to use the gyro sensor for turning and going straight, we realized that there was a problem with the gyro sensor. When we started port view, we noted that one second the reading was zero and a few seconds later, without moving the robot, the reading was -5. That means gyro was detecting motion when the robot was perfectly stationary. We tried to do many things that day: restart the robot, unplug the gyro and replug it, change the position of the gyro on the robot. Nothing worked.
We almost reached the conclusion that the gyro sensor we had was defective. We were about to give up using gyro when our initial research indicated several other teams had the same problem.
For several weeks this continued. The coach did not have an answer for us when we showed him the problem. Even the forums didn’t have any information about this, other than saying rookie teams should not use gyro sensors. The team was about to give up on the gyro and more than half the team was convinced that our kit had a defective gyro sensor. However a few of our stubborn members continued the research. Finally we stumbled upon some useful information. The entire robot has to be absolutely stationary while booting, otherwise the gyro gets a drift. This worked most of the time, but was such a nuisance.
Later on we learned that if we change the gyro mode from angle sensing to rate sensing it eliminates the gyro drift. This always worked like a charm. Our current programs are working very reliably after we made this change. We learned and used a very important core value in this incident: our coach and mentors don’t have all the answers; we learn together.
We almost reached the conclusion that the gyro sensor we had was defective. We were about to give up using gyro when our initial research indicated several other teams had the same problem.
For several weeks this continued. The coach did not have an answer for us when we showed him the problem. Even the forums didn’t have any information about this, other than saying rookie teams should not use gyro sensors. The team was about to give up on the gyro and more than half the team was convinced that our kit had a defective gyro sensor. However a few of our stubborn members continued the research. Finally we stumbled upon some useful information. The entire robot has to be absolutely stationary while booting, otherwise the gyro gets a drift. This worked most of the time, but was such a nuisance.
Later on we learned that if we change the gyro mode from angle sensing to rate sensing it eliminates the gyro drift. This always worked like a charm. Our current programs are working very reliably after we made this change. We learned and used a very important core value in this incident: our coach and mentors don’t have all the answers; we learn together.