Lab 2

Module 1 Github and Website Setup

The objective of this module of the lab was to create a shared space for all the code that will be written over the course of the project. This was accomplished by using GitHub, a common tool for code sharing. The team also created a website to publish their work. This page was created using bootstraps rather than github pages to alow for more customization. Here is a link to the github repository with the code for this lab and here is a link to the Google Slides for this lab.

Module 2 Getting Familiar with RACECAR Simulator

Control the Model

In this part of the lab, the team learned how to use rostopic to publish a message to a topic, while a Gazebo simulation was lisening to this topic. The Gazebo simulation made the simulated robot move around a simulated world.

Joystick Control

In this part of the lab, the team wrote a launch file that remapped two disconnected topics, allowing the team to drive the robot through the MIT tunnel system in the gazebo simulation using the remote control.

Visualize Scan Data

In this part of the lab, the team used Rviz to visualize the robot's sensing of the room. The team was able to move the robot around the room using the controls from the previous sections and visualize the laser-scanning data in real time.

Module 3 Streaming and Collecting Data

In this part of the lab, the team used ssh (secure shell) to connect to the robot for the first time. From a laptop, the team was able to connect to the camera and capture real time footage. Following that, the team was able to see some of the real time sensor data from the robot. The team then used rosbag to collect data about the machine's state and stored it on the external solid state drive.

Team Communication Setting Norms and Room for Improvement

Over the course of the last week, the team has communication and collaboration among members. The team began by using Slack, a messaging service generally used by businesses, but discovered none of the team members were accustomed to using it in their daily life and that resulted in poor communication. The team has since started using Facebook Messenger, which has improved team coordination, and there is a team email list. The team has also set organizational standards for the team Dropbox and recognized the ability within the team to balance each members' technical strengths by helping one another throughout the labs.

The team certainly has room to improve. Each team member has a different skill set due to diverse technical backgrounds and there is a need to communicate better each member's strengths and weaknesses. Doing this will help the team be more efficient, allow team members to learn new things, and ensure better division of tasks. The latter is an area in which the team failed during lab 2. Splitting up tasks would have been difficult with this short, necessarily sequential lab, but in future labs, there will surely be things that can be done in parallel.