The Background

I was asked to do a project that involved the interaction of two iRobot Creates. I had no knowledge of these robots other than that they were made by the same people who were behind the Roomba cleaning robot. Initially my project had little direction. It was up to me, for the most part, to quickly determine the capabilities of the robot as well as the capabilities of myself. I began by doing many small test cases to get a better grasp for the hardware and software.

At first, Dr. Pankratz and I had the vision of controlling the interaction wirelessly through BluTooth. This was quickly exchanged for the command module. The command module allows for more control of the robot. It allows the user to upload code to the onboard memory instead of feeding it from a seperate interface.

With further reading in the command module manual, we found that it was possible to add light sensors to the robot. Shortly after this, we decided the goal of the project would be to have one robot fitted with a series of light sensors and another robot fitted with a light beacon. The first robot would attempt to find the second robot with help onlly from the light sensors. Eventually, the second robot evolved to me walking around with a light source.

Another task that I was told to address was to include the use of the onboard bump sensors. With control of the bump sensors the robot would be almost completely self sufficient. If it runs into a wall, it is smart enough to back up and find the highest intensity direciton and continue correctly.

**To retrieve entire self-contained folder with final programs, go HERE