Lucia Builds a Robot: The RDS Cricket Debuts!!!

On our third day of class, Prof. Berg taught us how to use a new set of crickets that he designed that would allow us to do more awesome things at once. More specifically, we were introduced to wheels (two separate motors allowing for car-like movement and turns), revolution counting mechanisms, and reflectance sensors. To help focus our work, we got three challenges.
Our first challenge was to make the SciBorg 'bounce'--or drive until it hits an obstacle and a sensor is triggered that makes it stop, and drive backwards for one second. This was the program we wrote that worked:

Our second challenge was to make the SciBorg escape a semi-enclosed area. The bounce program was actually quite useful in this. What we did was program the SciBorg to drive straight until it hit an obstacle, bounce off the obstacle a little bit (though reversing for only half a second), turn one wheel a random amount (turning right a random amount), and driving forward again. It took a while and the SciBorg got a little beat up, but it worked! This is what the program looked like:

The third challenge was to make the SciBorg go forward exactly 1.5 meters through three different approaches. The first one was to use a timing mechanism; Casey and I timed how long it took for the SciBorg to drive 1.5 meters (making the SciBorg time itself, which was complicated) and then had it drive forward that exact amount. It worked! Our second approach was to use the revolution counter. We made the SciBorg record its 'count' for 1.5 meters, estimated it, and tested the amount out. It also worked. The third and more difficult approach was to use a reflectance sensor, which is something that records the reflection of the surface (so it can react to much darker or lighter areas). We had the SciBorg drive forward until the sensor recorded a much darker color, at which point it stopped. Although shadows disrupted the SciBorg at the beginning, this also worked. This is a picture of the approaches:

Timer: