How can I enhance my senior project idea for a robotics project?

[awri]

I must do a senior project this year and I have formulated an idea and I would like to know how I can manipulate the idea to make the project the best quality possible.

Idea: I want to go to engineering school so I am going to purchase a vex robotics kit (well the school will at least). Use the kit to make a custom designed robot most likely traveling on 4 wheels or tank tread maybe. I will mount 3 ultrasonic sensors (1 front, 1 each side). Then after building the robot I will write a mapping program so the robot will autonomously map a given area (and remember the map). Perhaps the robot will find a goal or something like that.

What I need are ideas/changes to make this project stand out. I need it to catch someone's eye whos reading a grad school application.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Mech_Engineer]

Don't bite off more than you can chew, a well-implemented project is always better than an incomplete/failed one.

With that being said, I would recommend checking out a site like www.parallax.com[/url] or [url]www.crustcrawler.com[/URL] which has lots of robotics kits and individual components such as sensors, control boards, and servos. If you want your robotics project to stand out, you should make it do more than just move and sense objects. Think of a specific application in the real-world, and make the robot to solve the problem. Maybe the robot could search a room and detect carbon monoxide, or identify a gas leak, or patrol an area using GPS while looking for intruders, or...

The possibilities are endless, limited only by your budget and time available.

 

[joelupchurch]

I'd also suggest checking these sites:

http://www.trossenrobotics.com/"

and

http://www.phidgets.com/"

The phidgets usb interfaces are remarkably easy to program.