Line sensor doesn't work on home made lines

#1

I’m teaching a robotics camp for the second year. First year we used Mbot 1.0. We could make lines with black markers or with black electrical tape and Mbot would follow them all.
This year we have Mbot 1.1. It will only follow the firgure eight lines on the sheet supplied by Mbot. It will not follow marker lines or black electrical tape. The Mbot 1.0 from last year follows these lines with no problem. Mbot 1.1 does not.
Any help would be appreciated!
Paul

#2

When I constructed my maze, I used a 1" (2.5cm) fabric tape that I got at my local electronics supply store. One of the things I noticed about the sensor is that that it works better with non-reflective black lines against a white background (high contrast). Black marker and electrical tape were either not dark enough (black marker) or too shiny (electrical tape) to get a good reading. You can likely find something similar at a hardware store (Lowe’s, Home Depot) or online (Amazon eBay, etc.) marketed as friction tape.

Hope this helps.

Chuck

#3

I appreciate the suggestion. I found black masking tape - non reflective. Still did not work. Mbot 1.0 worked fine on the shiny electrical tape and the marker. Mbot 1.1 doesn’t on either. I will try the friction tape though.

I appreciate all efforts to help!

Paul

#4

Sort of weird to hear. I’m pretty sure that Makeblock hasn’t changed the line following sensor recently.

The Usual Questions

  1. What version of mBlock are you using?
  2. Are you uploading the program (Arduino Mode) or running the program from within mBlock?
  3. If you are running a program from within mBlock, did you update the firmware before running the program?
  4. Have you tested the sensor by moving a black line under it to make each sensor trigger?
  5. Are you using the default program to do the line following? If so, try restoring the default program to see if the behavior persists.
  6. If you are using a custom program could you post a screen shot of it?

Past that, I have to refer you to @tec_support.

Best regards,

Chuck

#5

I was able to get line following with a v1.1 mBot, see https://youtu.be/bwMmDUPhPLE.

/Aram

#6