So, I wanted to talk about this thing I tinkered with, called it odomdjokovic.
Yeah, weird name, I know. It started pretty simple. I got one of those cheap little robot car kits, you know, wheels, motors, a basic board. My big idea was to make it track its own position. Just by counting how much the wheels turned. That’s called odometry, or ‘odom’ for short.
Where the ‘Djokovic’ came in
I figured it should be accurate, precise, cover the ground perfectly, like that tennis player, Djokovic. That was the plan, anyway. So, odom + Djokovic = odomdjokovic. Seemed clever at the time.
Well, reality check. Getting that thing to work right was a whole different game.
- First off, I hooked up the wheel sensors. Cheap ones, probably not the best choice.
- Then I started coding. Just basic stuff, trying to translate wheel spins into distance and direction.
- Tried running it on my wooden floor. Seemed okay-ish, but not great.
- Then I tried it on the rug. Complete disaster. Wheels slipped, readings went wild.
The struggle was real
Man, it was frustrating. You’d think you had it figured out. You’d calibrate it, measure everything, run the code. Let it go, expecting it to travel, say, two meters forward. And it ends up maybe 1.8 meters, but also somehow 30 centimeters to the left. Every single time, something different.
odomdjokovic was less like a precise champion and more like… well, me trying to play tennis. Lots of errors, hitting the net, balls flying everywhere.
I remember spending one whole Saturday just tweaking the code. Changed some numbers, added some filters, trying to smooth out the readings. Tested it again. It drove straight for a bit, then suddenly decided to do a sharp turn right into the wall. No idea why. The code looked okay.
I checked the wheels, made sure they weren’t loose. Cleaned the sensors. Even tried sticking different kinds of tape on the wheels for better grip. Didn’t really help much. Slippage is just a killer for basic odometry, I guess.
So, where is it now?
Honestly? odomdjokovic is currently parked on a bookshelf. Collecting dust. I haven’t totally given up on it, but I needed a break. It taught me a lesson, though. Making robots that know where they are is way harder than it looks. Those fancy ones must have a ton more sensors, maybe cameras or lasers or something smarter than just counting wheel turns.
It was a fun little experiment, even with all the headaches. You learn by doing, right? Even if ‘doing’ sometimes means figuring out all the ways something doesn’t work. Maybe one day I’ll get back to it, give odomdjokovic another shot at the championship.
