Mechatronics and Controls lab - Part B

Lisa Ali and Michael Zitolo

This week went by very quickly of us. In the beginning of the week we continued testing our theory that one or both of the cameras we are using for Caesar’s eyes are not situated on the plastic platform perfectly radiantly. We placed an object directly in the middle of Caesar’s eyes at different positions and measured the actual distance compared to the distance that was being calculated by Caesar. We noticed that the discrepancy grows significantly as the distance between the object and CAESAR grows. This brought us back to our theory that the variation between reported and actual positions may be due to one or both cameras being mounted at a slight angle. After we finalized our final tests, it was time to work on our other requirements for the program. We worked on completing a lesson plan for TeachEngineering.com, a research report, a presentation and a poster in order to present all the work we’ve accomplished over these past six weeks. On the last day of the program all of the (RET) teachers, NYU Poly faculty, grad students, and high school students involved in the SMARTER program gathered for the presentations of the research we’ve (teachers) all done over the past six weeks. Everyone’s research was so different and amazing.