Completion date: 14 Jul 2017
Description: A self-driving race car
Tags: Robotics
Tools: Embedded computer, Python, OpenCV, Arduino, ESC

Meals on Wheels, Racing Robot

In 11th grade, I wanted to step up my robotics know-how so I founded a robotics team and taught myself classical computer vision concepts.

To give ourselves an ambitious challenge, I entered the team into the International Autonomous Robot Racing Challenge (IARRC) – an annual event where university design teams compete to design a self-driving robot. As far as I know, we were the only highschool team participating that year against teams like UWaterloo, Georgia Tech, Western University, KMUTT, etc. We did quite well and placed second – beat only by my future university’s team.

Meals on Wheels navigating a test track

The robot relies on a front-facing camera feed processed by a raspberry pi to understand the world around it. Geometrical computer vision techniques allowed for the robot to accurately detect roadlines and navigate the track accordingly.

Render

Especially compared to other teams, our hardware/mechanical was quite scrappy. We basically stripped down a RC car and bolted a cooking tray to it as our main chassis. That’s why we named the car “Meals on Wheels”.