CE432-1 Robotics II 2021 Fall
Lab 1
Name: Mychael Garcia
Email: mhgarcia@fortlewis.edu

Materials:
Tutorial 3:

For this roject we used the ESP32-CAM board to stream video using a simple start and stop web server. For the second part we add a BMP180 board which had three built in sensors; temperature (deg C), Pressure (hPa), and Altitude (m). For the last part we created a webserver and small remote controled (RC) car that could stream video and be driven arround using the server.

Task 1:
For this task we streamed video off of a simple web server. We could control when the video was being sent or not. The video would buffer some with lower wifi conections but other than that the image quality was good.
video stream

Task 2:
For this task we added a sensor board to the server. The ESP32-CAM would comunicate with the BMP180 and recieve data readings and output them to the server so we could stream video and get sensor data. The code used from the book was originaly designed for a BME280, knowing this we had to change some of it so the code could work with our module. The main difference between these two sensors is that the BME has a humidity sensor and the BMP has a altitude sensor. After changing the code to disply altitude instead of humidity everything worked. We were getting readouts of; temperature (deg C), altitude (m), and pressure (hPa), The sensor was not perfect but was pretty close to the actual elevation, only 52.08 m off.
sensor datadurango


Task 3:
This was the last task in this series and was definitly the funnest. We took all the functionality of the ESP32-CAM board and made a little car that we could drive arround. It was connected to the schools "Guest" wifi and would stream the video as well as 5 functianlity buttons (Forward, Backward, Left, Right, and Stop). This car composed of a DC to DC power dilivery that would step the voltage down from 11.1V to around 5V. There was also a motor controler that was powerd directly from the batteries 11.1V and had 4 inputs that would control which way the motors should turn to drive the car. This signal was coming directly from ESP32-CAM board.
car feedcar

After getting the car working with a prototype PCB our new task was to design one using Autodesk EAGLE. This would just be the base PCB with no surface mounted components on it. We would do that ourselfs in class.
PCBcar

After making sure everything powered on and there were no shortrs or incorect traces, a short video was taken.


Conclusion:

This tutorial was very helpfull in understanding how well the simple server that was created works. It can be easily updated to include sensor data and a video stream. After developing and learning how to edit the server we attached everything to a simple 2WD car. This was definitely the funnest part of the project. We put everything we learned from the previous tutorials/projects into this one, controling the GPIO pins, conecting to wifi, displaying video, and creating a websere that had functioning buttons that could be used to see in real time what was happening to the car. The car obviously worked better with a stronger wifi signal as the car would somethimes not recieve the comand that we were no longer holding down one of the movement buttons. This would cause the car to continue moving till you hit the center stop button.
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