Welcome
Hello. This is the story about a mysterious beast, a mysterious underground organization, and three mysterious Stanford students who brought the beast and the organization together, changing the world forever.
Read on to follow our journey.
Read on to follow our journey.
The project
For the 2022 ME218C project, we were tasked with building a remote-controlled watercraft (TUG) and its corresponding controller (PILOT) to push cargo ships (aka 5-gallon paint buckets) around Terman fountain. There were two aspects to the PILOT: the CONCON and the GASCON. The TUG ships needed to be able to maneuver around the fountain as controlled by the CONCON. Additionally, we had to design our TUGs to run out of fuel after 10 seconds of running at full throttle. In order to refuel the TUG ships, the controller of the GASCON needed to perform a refueling action "consisting of a large-scale human body movement." Two separate people needed to control the CONCON and the GASCON and could not see each other's controller interfaces.
Additionally, our TUG needed to be able to be controlled by all of the other team's PILOTs, and vice versa. In order to achieve this, our class had to create a communications protocol to standardize the wireless information sent between PILOT and TUG.
Additionally, our TUG needed to be able to be controlled by all of the other team's PILOTs, and vice versa. In order to achieve this, our class had to create a communications protocol to standardize the wireless information sent between PILOT and TUG.
game objective
The class is divided at random between two guilds before the start of each round. Each guild attempts to move as many cargo ships (read: paint buckets) as possible into their harbor. The game ends when the majority of cargo ships are in place at any one guild’s harbor, or after 4 minutes and 36 seconds of game time have elapsed, or when people become bored.
We mostly became bored and just messed around with our TUGs.
We mostly became bored and just messed around with our TUGs.
Some Terminology
We built both a watercraft and a controller for the watercraft:
- TUG (Terman Unmanned Guider): the remote-controlled watercraft. We made a paddle boat.
- PILOT (Precariously Integrated Leader Of TUGs): the wireless controller for the TUG. We made an Illuminati pyramid with a joystick on the top.
- CONCON (Connected Over-the-air Navigation CONsole): part of the PILOT that controls the TUG
- GASCON (Generic Ampere Storage CONsole): part of the PILOT that controls the fuel level of the TUG