Katie H. Interview

1. What aspect of robotics are you interested in? (Vision, Autonomous movement)

2. Vision, autonomous movement, more specifically object detection, combining vision with movement - having robot be aware of its surroundings and able to react to not hit a wall, etc

3. Besides FIRST Robotics, do you have any other experiences with robotics or programming?

   1. Yes, but only as a middle schooler- started in FLL, did week-long summer camps with arduino robots, EV3s,

   2. If yes, what platforms do you have experience in? (if they have names)

   3. If there was a physical system, can you describe it?

      1. EV3s - brain for LEGO Mindstorm, has motors you can place wherever you’d like, would build base cube-shaped robot with 4 drive motors and 2 motors for arm attachments, using entirely LEGO pieces students can connect to motors (purely rotational) for elevators, rotation - versatile

         1. Used a form of LabView that was structured as block-style coding - felt that it was a lot easier to understand than scratch - a step between scratch and typing code - very sequential, but when you wanted to connect to a different segment of code you would drag lines between pieces to loop, etc - things weren’t nested, everything was sequential

         2. Came with a few sensors - line following sensor (pre-built), IR sensor to detect distance, could buy separate sensors to attach independently that connected to ‘brain’ the same way the motors did

      2. Arduino robots - used arduino unos, robots were pre-built most connections made through a breadboard - easy to understand and taught about wiring, learned ab power and ground vs data inputs, etc

         1. Annoying part - were typically unable to drive or move around because they were tethered to a computer, preferred LEGO mindstorms because inputs were simple, programming was easier to start with, and believes mindstorms could be programmed in different languages

            1. Wirelessly controlling the robot is important

4. Do you have experience with any sensors?

   1. If yes, what kinds?

      1. Line-following sensors, Limelight (camera system controlled by Raspberry Pi so very powerful), temperature sensors but doesn’t know how applicable those are to other robots, distance sensors could be useful especially on the front of the robot

   2. Are there any you would be interested in learning/using?

      1. Has worked with object detection specifically, but has never done odometry and thinks having an awareness of surroundings would be valuable

5. If you were to use a robotics platform, are there any key features you would want?

   1. Should be not Scratch, should be text-based programming, being able to be cohesive with other types of sensors, have a system that is straightforward enough to theoretically plug in another sensor

   2. Having it be able to be tested along the way as its being assembled - if there is a way to have the ‘brain’ run separately from other components, test small parts of the robot along the way - for FRC you have to connect to a lot of separate pieces just to have a basic robot - if you could connect wireless to the core ‘brain’ of the robot, etc so you don’t have to connect several parts for basic functionality

   3. If you’re experiencing errors with a sensor, if program sends an error message that there are issues with a sensor without shutting down the rest of the robot’s functions

   4. Be able to use Github

   5. If possible, be able to push code to robot wirelessly (low priority, but nice to have)

   6. Having a ‘disabled’ mode where it isn’t moving but you can ‘check vitals’, receive specific outputs from every sensor, get state of sensor

   7. Lego mindstorms was a black box where if you set motor to 80%, there was no way to verify the state of the motor- have a way to check what robot thinks it is set and and compare it to what it is actually doing- being able to measure the physical properties of the motor at that time

   8. Well-documented code, API, like Arduino function API even for basic functions

6. Would you describe yourself as a ‘beginner,’ ‘intermediate,’ or ‘proficient’ in robotics?

   1. Beginner/Intermediate - more proficient in line-following sensors, Limelight/object detection and relative position, combining vision with movement

   2. If they say they do not have proficiency in ‘Robotics,’ maybe instead ask about specific interests, like programming or design

7. General queries

   1. What is the strength in the current robotics platform you have used?

      1. Likes the way that FRC robots are set up - central power supply that branches out and you can just insert things into Wago terminals, easy to modify/add to wiring, can use third-party sensors

      2. Arduinos - sells moisture sensor, but it was more expensive than one on Amazon, or maybe you want a sensor that Arduino doesn’t sell, you can still easily integrate it - compatible with third party sensors

      3. To gain proficiency, you have to branch out with your own goals - having a less flexible platform limits learning experience

   2. What is the weakness in the current robotics platform you have used?

      1. Don’t like breadboards - liked the versatility but it felt too fragile, wires pulled out

      2. Mindstorms - can’t use third party sensors - all of their parts integrate really nicely, but would be difficult to integrate a different type of sensor because you don’t have separate wiring connections, just one connection - if you separated power vs information in wiring, you could connect a lot of different inputs, customizing platform

8. Please make a syllabus. Now. Like, right now.
   Seriously.

9. Add at end - would be nice if robot could stand on its own when robot off, but not necessary

Always confirm your understanding!

• as you go through, summarize your thoughts and reconfirm for input

• record

• live notetaking

• at the end-- did we miss anything? anything else to add?
  No.