LINE FOLLOWER WORKSHOP

The Association of Computer Engineers (ACE), together with team BHP Robotics,held a workshop on “Line Follower” for the students of the Computer Department of PCCE on the 15 th of March 2023, from 02:00 p.m. – 05:00 pm, in the Database and Data Analytics Lab. Mr. Vivek Paste and Mr. Shaun Pereira from TE COMP were the resource persons for the event. The Workshop saw 15 participants in total from second, third and fourth years of the computer Department.
The Workshop kicked off with Mr. Shaun Pereira explaining the hardware aspects of a Line Follower. He introduced the participants to the various components that make up a Line Follower such as Arduino boards (of different types – UNO, Mega, Leonardo, Nano, etc.) and explained the Nano board in detail. He then went on to explain the different kinds of Motor Drivers, their functions and features, and how the line follower actually senses the black / white lines using the Infrared Sensors.
Soon afterward, Mr. Vivek Paste explained how one must program the Line Follower to work efficiently. He explained the various parts of the code that helps a Line Follower work, the necessary statements along with their syntax, and how by changing the input values, one can program the Line Follower to work either as a Black Line Follower or a White Line Follower.
Being members of team BHP and having participated in various Robotics and Line Follower competitions, Mr. Shaun and Mr. Vivek brought up the various factors that have to be taken care off in a Line Follower Competition such as calibrating the bot according to the track pattern, line width and colour (black / white) as well as how longer distances of the IR sensors from the chassis, can determine the efficiency of the bot.
Soon after, the participants were divided into 3 groups where each group was assigned to build one White Line Follower each. Each team was further divided into two, where some members worked on the bot assembly and the other members worked on programming the Arduino Nano boards, thus enabling all participants to have a hands-on experience. The resource persons went round, instructing and guiding each team, helping them whenever necessary. Once each team was done, they were called up to the front to test their robot on a White Line Follower track.