Ops Manager: Project

1. The Challenge

Amazing.com’s robot workforce currently uses a Bang! Bang! controller to navigate around the warehouse. It was quick and easy to get the operation up and running when it was a small operation. Up until now, this has got the job done with little fuss. However, with sales rising fast the robot pickers have now hit their maximum stock-picking capacity.

Your challenge is to develop a more efficient line-following algorithm that can follow a line-marked route across the warehouse between the stock shelves and the packing area to collect 3 items from the stock shelves and return them to the packing area in the shortest possible time.

          • You can only transport one item at a time.
          • You can manually place an item in your carrier when the stock picker reaches the stock shelf and remove it when it arrives at the packing area. 
          • Your stock picker must pause for 3 seconds at each end of the route to allow for manual loading and unloading.
          • Your code must perform an initial time check when the code starts and record the elapsed time in your notebook when it returns to the packing area for the third time.