Zombies on the High Seas
We are Team IKnowUART and this website was created as our final report for the Zombies on the High Seas project in ME 218C: Smart Product Design Practice at Stanford University.
The class was divided into four person teams and each team constructed a Human/Zombie Vehicle (HZV) and a Living/Undead Contoller (LUC). Each HZV is a device capable of navigating in shallow water and is equipped with a balloon popping mechanism. Each LUC is a wireless remote controller capable of controlling any HZV. All HZVs and LUCs were designed to compete in a game.
The class was divided into four person teams and each team constructed a Human/Zombie Vehicle (HZV) and a Living/Undead Contoller (LUC). Each HZV is a device capable of navigating in shallow water and is equipped with a balloon popping mechanism. Each LUC is a wireless remote controller capable of controlling any HZV. All HZVs and LUCs were designed to compete in a game.
The Game
A game round is a competition between two fleets, a fleet of human vehicles and a fleet of zombie vehicles. The number of vehicles in each fleet and their physical arrangement at the beginning of the round can vary. One possible starting arrangement is shown below. The goal of the game for the zombie fleet was to convert all human vehicles to zombies and the objective of the human fleet was to "gather supplies" from one or more floating supply depot. The game ends when all human vehicles have been turned into zombies or all of the supplies have been gathered.
Each supply depot was a 16 inch diameter foam disk with multiple inflated balloons mounted on it. Each balloon represents a cache of supplies and the human vehicles "gather supplies" by popping the balloons. Each human vehicle has an inflated balloon mounted on it and when the balloon is popped the vehicle becomes a zombie. Zombie vehicles do not carry balloons. The field of play was approximately 26ft. wide and 30 ft. long.
Human/Zombie Vehicles
Each HZV was required to be battery powered and operate without a tether. Communication between each HZV and LUC pair was achieved using provided XBee24 modules. An electro-mechanical indicator of the HZV's control status and a class standard balloon holder were required. The balloon holder was required to be mounted at the aft end of the vehicle. The perimeter of an HZV could be no greater than 72 inches and a class standard foam bumper was required to follow the perimeter of the vehicle. The only thing allowed to extend beyond the perimeter of the vehicle was a balloon popping mechanism. The mechanism could extend no more than 3 inches beyond the perimeter and could not be deployed for longer than 2 seconds at a time. The mechanism could only be deployed in response to a discrete action by the LUC operator. When a HZV is in the zombie state the speed of the vehicle must be decreased by 50% and it must respond to all Necromancer commands. Messages could be issued by the HZV at a rate no greater than 5 Hz and if no message from it's controller is received for 1 second, the HZV was required to revert to the controller search process. Learn more about OUR Human/Zombie Vehicle by visiting the Hardware, Software and Electronics pages.
Living/Undead Controllers
Each LUC was required to display to the operator an indication of active communication with an HZV and provide the user a method of indicating which HZV he/she would like to control. Each LUC was required to be battery powered and to have sufficient battery capacity for at least 8 hours of continuous use. At least three sensing modalities were required on each LUC and a LUC could issue commands to an HZV at a rate no greater than 5 Hz. Learn more about OUR Living/Undead Controller by visiting the Hardware, Software and Electronics pages.
The Necromancer
The Necromancer is a source of radio messages directed to individual zombie vehicles. Messages from the Necromancer are used to modify the performance of the vehicle. The Necromancer may increase the speed of the vehicle (from the default degraded state of 50% speed to 75% speed), reduce turning performance, or swap left and right and/or forward and backward controls. Necromancer messages have no effect on human vehicles.
Download the full project description here.
me218cprojectdescription.pdf | |
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