Obstacle avoidance is one of the most important aspects of Robotics. It is a necessary to keep away the robots from physical damages and accidents.
The students of class VII engaged themselves in constructing an obstacle avoiding robot in one of their Robotics classes. The robot could automatically sense and overcome obstacles on its path by incorporating the use of various sensors that detect the objects from a distance and avoid them.
The obstacle avoiding robot had two IR (Infrared) sensors mounted on either side of the structure and a sound sensor placed in the middle of the two IR sensors. When all the three sensors or either of the two IR sensors detected an object, the motor stopped for a while and moved in backward direction taking a turn, else it kept on moving in the forward direction.
The students did a trial run by assembling the remote control device and observed the robot following the steps programmed in the algorithm. The construction of this structure acquainted them with the significance of sensors in providing sensing capabilities to the robot.