Our project originated around a shared frustration of setting up rooms for club events. Since we had to repeatedly set up rooms in the same configuration, it seemed like the perfect problem for a robot to solve.
The end goal of this project is to have a robot be able to clean/clear or set up such a space to a user-specified configuration; due to time, space, and budget constraints, we limited our project to moving (much smaller) boxes, painted different colors to represent chairs and tables.
To accomplish this, we wanted to design a robot that would achieve these goals:
While our project drew inspiration from 106a labs, the key difference and most interesting aspect of our project lies in the perception and actuation component for chairs and tables. In order to sense objects, we previously used AR tags, however, this is impractical for real-world applications. For our project, we then wanted to be able to implement a vision component to detect chairs and tables. These kinds of objects pose a new challenge, since the thin legs of a chair would be more difficult to perceive and move. Our solution currently includes a simplified object detection algorithm, so future improvements would extend upon this vision component.
Upon detecting and determining the location of each object, we want our robot to automatically relocate objects to their desired end location (defined by us). In order to accomplish this, our robot must be able to automatically navigate the environment to the current object location as well as be able to push the object to its new location.
Since we designed the project around a real-world problem we face, there are many applications for our project. An expansion on the vision aspect of the project could allow the robot to recognize any number of objects, meaning the robot can be used in all situations needing room setup on a larger scale, such as for conferences, concerts, meetings, etc. Similarly, it could be extended to other organizational tasks, such as organizing offices or warehouses. With more development into the robot system and interface, it could be used to automatically clean or setup a room in preparation for or after a large event.