Hello guys!
It’s time to study the most common task of a robot. What is it? Line tracking!
This activity is fascinating, as it is very fun to watch the robot go round and around a track!
Actually, some people believe that the line has magnetic properties!
As we have said, Edison has a line tracking sensor. With this sensor, it can detect black lines.
The barcode that you can find in the accompanying document “Resources” with the title “Line tracking” activates the corresponding program. With that program, the robot can locate the black line on the floor and it can move along it, which means that it can actually follow it!
Now, let’s make Edison scan the barcode:
Place the robot on the right side, pointing to the barcode that the robot is going to scan...
We press the record button, which is round, three times.
Edison will move straight ahead and will scan the barcode.
Great! We have activated the “Line tracking” program! Now, let’s see how it works in practice!
Initially, we should design the track. To do this, there are three (3) ways:
The easiest way is to use a prepared track. We can use the oval track; printed from the accompanying document “Resources”.
We place Edison next to the black line and press the play button, which is a triangle.
We notice that our robot moves along the black oval line.
Another way is to use the Edison track! It is called EdMat. You can find EdMat right in the next section of this lesson. You can download it to your computer by clicking on the green connector located at the top right of the screen and then print it.
We place Edison at one end of the track so that the sensor is next to the line. Then we press the triangle play button, and we watch the robot drive around and around on the track.
The most difficult but most interesting way is to create our track! How can we do that?
We take a black insulation tape, 1.5 cm wide, and stick it on a flat surface. This way, we create our line in any shape we want!
We place Edison at one end of the track so that the sensor is next to the line.
Then we press the triangle play button, and we watch the robot follow the line that we have designed!
If you want to, you can design your track and make Edison follow that!