Brood XIV

Description::The brood XIV (14) is a robotic project dedicated to the fourteen year cicadas. The Brood fourteen was an animatronics project that competed in TSA. it was created By Micro in 07-08. The Brood XIV went to the TSA State conference and took First and then went to the national conference in Orlando, Florida and took ninth place.

Design
The Brood XIV uses a locomotive style drive. This means it uses only 2 motors to move all six legs. It also uses two sensors in the front so when it walks into something it can figure out which way to go to walk around the object. the sensors work off of a basic if then statement. the wings were originally made out of coat hangers and card board but then was changed to be coat hangers and stockings. we found that the cardbroad made the wings too heavy to flap at a good constant speed.

Competition Story
When we went to the national tsa competition we shipped the Brood XIV down the day before we left for two reasons. One so we didnt have to worry abput another box and two because i bet airport security would love us walking in with a robot. When we arrived at the hotel and got to our room we went to pick up our package. When we got the package it looked like it had been kicked out of the back of a moving truck the edges were all dented and the box was pretty much smashed. when we opened it the brood XIV it had been shattered into so many pieces. Luckily i had plenty of time to rebuild it. my partner was no help he didn't have any clue how to build it. even tho i had a partner he did none of the work.

Programming
For the Programming of the Brood XIV i used a program called Robo Pro. Robo pro is a lucky logic program, I had written a basic program that allowed the robot to walk straight and it had flapping wings and glowing red eyes. once the robot ran into something it would set off a buzzer and it would back up and walk around the object depending on what side it hit.