Ghost in the machine- XRP robot

Robotics
1

I am a teacher and struggling with “ghosts in the machine”. When my students run a code through blockly e.g. to travel straight (for 85cm) the robots are doing random spins, not travelling straight.

It seems the motors have different efforts.

Then sometimes the robot work and other times just spins, with the same code.

Its so frustrating as the students are programming correctly and they are feeling very disheartened.

Is there a way to reboot everything to factory settings? Or some other way of fixing this issue?

2

For the disconnects: Double-check the cables/drivers

For the motor issue, ensure you calibrate their efforts to match Motors — XRP 2023.0 documentation

3

Hi TS-Russel thanks for your response.

What can I do when the XRP Robot after a few goes of operating correctly using the blockly code, decides to run some random program that doesn’t match what is programmed in the editor?

4

My first guess = Ensure the batteries are new…there isn’t a lot of reason for things to go haywire, but underpowering is one

Can you share a link to a video of the behavior?

5

Hi,

Hopefully you can view video in link below. The XRP has brand new batteries and you can see that the motors have two different efforts so XRP cannot travel straight. Not sure why motors have differences…

iCloud Mail - Apple iCloud

6

Got it - post the code being used…the right wheel is definitely spinning way faster

Can you share a photo of the connectors/board?

7

Here is the code

image.png270×390 61.2 KB

Here is what happened (new batteries)

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The things is, we have about 12 robots and the random behaviour is happening often. Its quite frustrating.

8

I think most of the issues are stemming from calibration problems - I’d try either calibrating with 'effort, adjusting left and right (increase left for now) with just a ‘straight’ function until the xrp is driving evenly, the re-test

You can also use the ‘speed’ function which is encoder-based and should adjust effort in the background for ya; see the blue link a few posts above