Larry V3

Larry did a lot of schooling last night.  He's at version 3.0 now.  He can now play a note, counts to 3 and realizes that zero is a number.  Many problems solved.  Larry is getting smarter and hung up less.  In this pic, he's looking a little peaked.  He's been through lots of testing and two battery packs today.

Notice the low sensor.  Larry won't approach something he can't climb over now.  I haven't tried overhead environments; but, I'll test that sometime later.  Also notice that Larry has a third servo that drives his eyes.  He constantly scans back and forth looking for things he might run into.  At this point, Larry will only get hung up on objects that he approaches at a very shallow angle.

Larry had to learn how to count today.  Up until now, Larry could get trapped in a place where he needed to make a left turn to get out.  So now, every 4th right turn in a row, Larry will make a left turn instead.  When he makes a left turn, the count resets.  He can still get boxed in; but, he's also not making 90 degree turns, so he tends to find his way out after the first couple times around.

Next steps for Larry...

*  Larry simply needs help on his undercarriage.  He should be proud of himself and not have droopy drawers.

*  Larry is going to learn how to pick a direction of travel instead of counting turns.  This will be done by choosing the most open path and a speed appropriate for that path - tighter quarters, slower speed.