Follow the Line

Applicant Name:	Daniel Gray (Marlboro, NJ)
Applicant Grade:	Grade 7
Category:	Junior Division: Physical Science
Project Description:	The purpose of this project was to discover a better way to build line following robots. The experiment was designed to find the best placement of the wheels and light sensor on a line following robot.

Problem:
What is the effect on the speed and accuracy of a line following robot when the front to back positioning of the robot’s wheels and light sensor is changed?

Hypothesis:
I hypothesized that when the sensor is in the front of the robot, the wheels should be in the back for the robot to do well. I predicted this because with the wheels further back, smaller turns would make the sensor go the same amount left and right. This allows for sharper turns in the line. I did not think any configuration with a sensor in the back would work at all, because if there is a turn in the line, the wheels will be past it by the time it is noticed. In case back sensor configurations would be successful, I tested them anyway. I predicted that the closer the wheels to the sensor, the further the robot would travel successfully, because there would be less time after a turn until the sensor sees the line.

Method:
The robot used has six different configurations. The four wheels and the light sensor can be removed, and attached in different places. Each configuration was tested on five different courses, each course composed of straight, curved, and/or angled lines. Performance was rated based on how quickly and completely each configuration finished each course.