S15: Connect Four - Robotic Player
Contents
Grading Criteria
- How well is Software & Hardware Design described?
- How well can this report be used to reproduce this project?
- Code Quality
- Overall Report Quality:
- Software Block Diagrams
- Hardware Block Diagrams
- Schematic Quality
- Quality of technical challenges and solutions adopted.
Artificially-Intelligent Connect Four Robot
Abstract
Play Connect Four against an Artificially Intelligent robot with variable difficulty. Prepare to test your ability to think into the future and your proficiency at connecting your pieces against an ideal player. Connect Four
Objectives & Introduction
The objectives of this project is to implement a robotic connect four player with the same capabilities as a human being with respect to the task of connecting pieces by inserting them into one of seven columns at the top of the board. Just as a human can see where his opponent has played his move and can insert his next move into the board, this robot will implement imitations of these basic human abilities.
Team Members & Responsibilities
Matthew Carlis (Jack of all Trades) - Hardware/Mechanical,
Artificial Intelligence,
System Architect,
Technical Writer.
Alexander Koumis (Image/Driver Guru) - Drivers,
Image Processing,
Software Interfaces.
Status Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txRglMCjcsI&feature=youtu.be
Schedule
| Story# | Points | Task | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 15 | Motor Controller | Write a Stepper motor driver with variable frequency capabilities with constant linear acceleration. This driver should slowly speed up the motor and slowly bring it down while being capable of mapping PWM frequency to pulley frequency. |
| 2 | 10 | Bluetooth Socket. | The micro-controller will be run in combination with a workstation using Bluetooth message passing. The workstation will implement the AI programming where the micro-controller simply tells the workstation through Bluetooth where each move is made by the human and is returned the column number of where to insert the robots next piece. The workstation will implement a Python program interface. |
| 3 | 20 | AI Brain. (It's alive!) | A Python program running on an workstation will implement the "Brain" of the robot where messages are passed between the micro-controller and workstation through Bluetooth. This program will determine where the robot will insert his next move based on which column the human inserts into as reported through the Bluetooth message protocol. |
| 4 | 30 | Mechanical System. | The mechanical system be capable of inserting it's own pieces using linear motion and a stepper motor. The robot will drop his piece into a funnel device which is driven over the column for which the robot wishes to play. After his human opponent has inserted his piece the robots eyes will detect the location of the humans insertion and reply by inserting his next piece. |
| 5 | 25 | The Eyes. | Using the pixy camera to determine the current configuration of the Connect Four board for the robotic player. Using statistical filtering by oversampling the frames the robot will be see each piece as it is inserted. |
| Story# | Points | Story | Burn-down | Time Invested | Actual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 15 | Motor Controller | 10 | 15 Hours | 22.7% |
| 2 | 10 | Bluetooth Socket. | 5 | 3 Hours | 4.5% |
| 3 | 20 | AI Brain. (It's alive!) | 15 | 18 Hours | 27.3% |
| 4 | 30 | Mechanical System. | 18 | 20+ Hours | 30.3% |
| 5 | 25 | The Eyes. | 10 | 10+ Hours | 15.2% |
| Event# | Date | Task | Actual |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3/1 | Spec out Design | Completed: Started the system hardware/mechanical specs and materials ordering. Software interfaces are well defined, but not implemented. |
| 2 | 3/18 | Ordered Materials | Completed: Completed mechanical design/research and ordered the majority of the significant materials. (Stepper motor, timing belt/pulleys, liner motion accessories) |
| 3 | 4/1 | Structure Materials | Completed: Received and obtained the majority of the significant materials for the mechanical structure. |
| 4 | 4/20 | Major Milestone | Completed: Bluetooth interface, Stepper Motor Driver, Mechanical specs/ordered, AI implementation. |
| 5 | 4/27 | Projected | ToDo: Finish assembling the mechanical, add linear acceleration to motor driver. |
Parts List & Cost
Give a simple list of the cost of your project broken down by components. Do not write long stories here.
| Qty (Extra) | Description | Manufacturer | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stepper Motor Driver 3A | SmartSain | $19.99 |
| 1 | Stepper Motor | Lin Engineering | $45.90 |
| 1 | 24V-40W PSU. | CircuitSpecialists | $14.79 |
| 1 | Pixy Camera CMUcam5 | Pixy | $69.99 |
| 1 | XBee Bluetooth | XBee | $27.95 |
| 2 | Timing Pulley's | N/A | $11.95 (each) |
| 1 | Timing Belt | N/A | $9.95 |
| 4 | Linear Rail Guide | N/A | $3.95 (each) |
| 2 | Linear Bearing w/Platform | N/A | $6.95 (each) |
| 2 | 8mm Linear Motion Rail/Shaft Steel | N/A | $15.25 (each) |
Design & Implementation
The design section can go over your hardware and software design. Organize this section using sub-sections that go over your design and implementation.
Hardware Design
Discuss your hardware design here. Show detailed schematics, and the interface here.
Hardware Interface
In this section, you can describe how your hardware communicates, such as which BUSes used. You can discuss your driver implementation here, such that the Software Design section is isolated to talk about high level workings rather than inner working of your project.
- Physical Layer Interfaces
- SPI - Pixy Camera
- Bluetooth - Laptop Communication
- PWM (stepper) - 1 Wire PWM with 2 Control Signals.
- PWM (servo) - 2 Wire PWM.
Software Design
Show your software design. For example, if you are designing an MP3 Player, show the tasks that you are using, and what they are doing at a high level. Do not show the details of the code. For example, do not show exact code, but you may show psuedocode and fragments of code. Keep in mind that you are showing DESIGN of your software, not the inner workings of it.
- Software Architecture.
- MiniMax Algorithm with Alpha/Beta Pruning
- Multi-Task driver environment.
- Message Passing protocols.
Implementation
This section includes implementation, but again, not the details, just the high level. For example, you can list the steps it takes to communicate over a sensor, or the steps needed to write a page of memory onto SPI Flash. You can include sub-sections for each of your component implementation.
Testing & Technical Challenges
Describe the challenges of your project. What advise would you give yourself or someone else if your project can be started from scratch again? Make a smooth transition to testing section and described what it took to test your project.
Include sub-sections that list out a problem and solution, such as:
My Issue #1
Discuss the issue and resolution.
Conclusion
Conclude your project here. You can recap your testing and problems. You should address the "so what" part here to indicate what you ultimately learnt from this project. How has this project increased your knowledge?
Project Video
Upload a video of your project and post the link here.
Project Source Code
- Sourceforge Source Code Link (Project Baseline)
- Connect Four:
References
Acknowledgement
Any acknowledgement that you may wish to provide can be included here.
References Used
List any references used in project.
Appendix
You can list the references you used.
