Subject:
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Re: [Fwd: Mindstorm Mall Tour looking for a few good LUGs]
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.loc.us.ca.sf
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Date:
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Mon, 6 Nov 2000 12:31:50 GMT
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Viewed:
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998 times
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On Tue, 31 Oct 2000 18:12:06, ba-lego@cinnamon.com (Paul Gyugyi)
wrote:
> I like the ideas, especially the dump station.
>
> I am thinking of maybe using the white droid DDK microscout
> one a tipper car, and the blue Scout on the side of the track.
> When the Scout sees a car is next to it, it sends VLL led
> messages to turn the microscout on and off, tipping the car.
I was thinking about a train of 3 or 4 cars, with an arm
controlled by the Scout doing the tipping: stop the train with
the first car in position, trigger the Scout, wait for it to run the
dump cycle, advance to the next car, etc.
The process would be much the same at the loading station.
Figuring out when each car is in position is a non-trivial task,
given the limited I/O of the RCX and Scout. But I have a scheme
that I think would work:
1. The RCX running the train is stationary, and drives the track.
2. The load and dump stations each have their own Scout,
which has some sort of sensor arrangement that tells it when
a car is in position (I have a couple of ideas for this). Each
Scout drives a light brick, coupled to a light sensor on the
RCX.
3. The RCX has some sort of sensor that tells it the train is
nearing a station.
The sequence of operations would be:
1. The train chugs along at normal speed, until it trips the
"station ahead" sensor.
2. The RCX starts a decelleration cycle pre-calculated to bring
it to a crawl just before the first car is in position.
3. The Scout detects the car, and turns on its light.
4. The RCX halts the train until the light goes out, then
creeps ahead to position the next car.
5. When the last car has been loaded/dumped, the train
is accellerated, and runs to the next "station ahead".
Since the sequence is the same for both stations, there's
only one RCX routine required to handle both. And the inputs
from both Scouts can be "wire ORed" by having both
light bricks drive the same light sensor, saving scarce
I/O lines.
If the tipper cars are built very small (along the lines of
the hoppers offered by "Fletcher Jenning"), the system
could be built and run on a simple circle without looking
too far out-of-scale (and it would actually look more
like a "mine train", to boot). Thus satisfying the TLC
requirement that it not be too big and/or daunting.
LMK if this sounds interesting: I do have a few more
details in mind, but the ball loader in particular is
a "black box" in my mental model, and it will probably
be tricky enough that someone needs to get started
on it soon.
Ran
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