The Leap
At 12 years old, this project marked a significant leap from toy hacking to actual robotics. It was also my first collaborative project.
The Team
This was an after-school project built with:
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Benjamin Corbelet - my friend and co-builder
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Romeo Dias - a fantastic teacher who guided us
Having a mentor made all the difference. Romeo showed us how to approach problems systematically and helped us understand the theory behind what we were building.
How It Works
The robot performs a simple but elegant task:
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Grab an object with the mechanical arm
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Analyze its color using a DIY sensor
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Sort it into the appropriate box (blue or red)
The DIY Color Sensor
The most innovative part was the color sensor we built ourselves:
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Three colored LEDs (red, green, blue) that illuminate the object sequentially
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A light sensor in the middle that measures reflected light
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Software logic that compares the readings to determine the dominant color
By measuring how much light is reflected for each LED color, we could deduce the object's color. A red object reflects more red light, a blue object reflects more blue light.
The Significance
This project introduced me to:
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Sensor design - building detection systems from first principles
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Control systems - coordinating multiple actuators
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Teamwork - collaborating on complex projects
These foundations would become central to my later work in robotics and prosthetics.