Introduction

BOE Car

The BOE robot car car is used by the EELE 101 Intro to Electrical Fundamentals class and is available from Parallax Inc. here. This car is used as a project car for first year EE students to learn about simple electric circuits and get an introduction to C programming using the Arduino IDE. Our task for the 2017 Robot Car Races Senior Design Project is to modify the existing car to significantly improve its time around a designated track. The car must be completely autonomous. We are free to make changes to any of the car's subsystems including microcontroller, sensors, motors/servos, chassis, wheels/tires, and drive mechanism. Each team is given a $125 stock room allowance from the ECE department and an additional $125 of personal investment headroom for a total non-exceedable budget of $250. The goal is to use engineering design techniques to maximize speed around the track. This requires optimization to keep the car light, powerful, on course, and stable.

 

 

 

 

Track Layout

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Track LayoutThe designated track consists of black tape of on a white background. There are measurements shown in the photo to the left. The car will be     placed on the start line and the operator will push a button to start the race. After the first initial contact, the center of the car will follow the line and come to a stop automatically after crossing the finish line.

The existing BOE car is not very fast, and is used more as a vehicle for teaching fundamental concepts. It is our responsibility to use the knowledge we have gained in our years of school since taking EE 101, and apply it to improving the stock car's track time. We are also competing with the other groups to see who's car completes the race the fastest. The team members picked this project because they had an interest in autonomous vehicles, power, line sensing, and motors.

 

Sponsor & Advisor Information

 

Advisor :Prof. Hongwei Gao, Ph.D.| College of Engineering

Assistant Professor of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Montana State University

Tel: (406)-994-5973
Email: hgao@ece.montana.edu

Sponsor: Electrical & Computer Engineering Department

Montana State University
P.O. Box 173780
Bozeman, MT 59717-3780

Tel: (406) 994-2505
Fax: (406) 994-5958