Hi....I'm Nikhil. First of all, I would like to thank Element14 for organizing the "Teacher's Pet Students' Robotics Challenge". My project is to implement a 3-D mapping of the surroundings. In contrast to the prevalent method of using two or more cameras placed at a particular distance from each other to map the surroundings, I plan to do the same with a single camera and a couple of distance sensor, to perceive the depth.
The main difficulty with this is that unlike a SONAR it is not an area depth detection but it is like LIDAR. So, main observation here is that, the sensor need to rotate to get an area-wise perception. I purely intend to ease the process of 3-D mapping and comparing results with those of existing systems like Kinnect.
The stages of development include planning of what to buy, getting schematics ready, simulate if possible, testing of individual components upon delivery, integration, system test and modification.
About me, I am the Electronics Team Leader, SRM Team ROBOCON, mainly for the competition ABU ROBOCON, a Wing-Chun practitioner and been a part of other inter-national and national robotic competitions as well. To me, this competition is a platform to showcase our ideas with the motivation and support provided by Element14 and Matlab, along with a constructive response from all the other participants. I wish all the participants, a best of luck and hope to receive the shipment of the kit soon to get started.