Lead Programmer
First Robotics
Boise, Idaho, United States
Final Season: Won 3/3 regional competitions, 2 Ford Autonomous Awards, placed in top 75 at world competition. Additionalresponsibility as lead programmer.• Built path generator to create path from specified points and level of continuity (0th, 1st, 2nd, 3rd derivative).• Path following system using vector fields, with position-based error correction to reduce deviation from path.• Full simulator using Java Swing / AWT to test following code and create paths, direct transfer from simulator to robot.• Led to far more consistent and reliable autonomous driving compared than in the past.• Custom vision algorithms to pick out retroreflective strips on target, multithreaded connected components algorithm.• First in Java, 200% increase in frame rate when reimplemented in C. Far better results tracking target in real time.• Visualization using Java Swing / AWT showing orientation, position, velocity of robot relative to path.• Command line tool to run commands, debug, and tune robot parameters without stopping robot process.• 80% decrease in time spent tuning PID controllers and general system parameters.