Introduction

Online retailers store their products in vast warehouses. They often employ line-following robots to drive around the warehouse picking items off the shelves for new orders that come in.

Employing robots to do repetitive tasks frees up the human workforce to focus on more interesting tasks, such as managing and maintaining the robot operation and developing new and more efficient operational strategies.

The stock picking robot workforce at the world’s Number One online retailer, Amazing.com, is currently running at full capacity picking, packing and shipping the customer orders that it receives on a daily basis.

You have been tasked with increasing the volume of products that Amazing.com can ship out to its customers on a daily basis without increasing the number of robot pickers it employs. By keeping its operational costs low, Amazing.com can continue to offer its customers the cheapest prices on the planet.

To increase the volume of products shipped out to customers on a daily basis without increasing the size of the robot workforce you must find a way to improve the stock picking efficiency of each robot.

For the track:

For the stock picker’s basket:

For stock items: 

For optional experiments:

Algorithm: A set of precise instructions that, given some set of initial conditions, can be performed in a prescribed sequence to achieve a desired goal.

Bang Bang Controller: a robotics algorithm that switches abruptly between two states. Also known as 2 step controller, or on-off controller.

Calibration : the act of checking or adjusting the accuracy of a measuring instrument, by testing it with known standards within its intended operating environment.

Code Coverage: a testing concept where every line of code gets tested, including every section of if statements (the True part and the False part).

Code Re-Use: the practice of using existing code for a new function or software.

Fail-safe: a design feature or rule that, in the event of a failure or unexpected turn of events, responds in a way that minimizes or avoids harm.

Maintainability: the ease with which a product can be modified to encounter new challenges.

Markdown: an internet language to annotate and format documents (see Wikipedia for more)

Proportional Controller: a more advanced robotics algorithm that takes into account how off-track the robot is and adjust direction accordingly.

These exercises will teach you what you need to know in order to succeed in the main project.

Ops Manager Learn 1: The Notebook

Ops Manager Learn 2: Build and Calibrate

Ops Manager Learn 3: First Steps / Line Follower

Ops Manager Learn 4: Turn a Corner

After you've completed the Learn sections, you are ready for the main project. 

This lesson will guide you through it: Ops Manager project

This lesson will guide you through testing your solution: Try It Out

If you want to go a bit further, here are two ways to go further with this project.

Extension: Line Follower Explained

Extension: PD Controller