Understanding our task – cleaning up the playroom
We have already talked a bit about our main task for Albert, our example robot for this book, which is to clean up the playroom in my house after my grandchildren come to visit. We need to provide a more formal definition of our problem, and then turn that into a list of tasks for the robot to perform along with a plan of action on how we might accomplish those tasks.
Why are we doing this? Well, consider this quote by Steve Maraboli:
“If you don’t know where you are going, how do you know when you get there?”
Figure 3.1 – It’s important to know what your robot does
The internet and various robot websites are littered with dozens of robots that share one fatal character flaw: the robot and its software were designed first and then they went out to look for a job for it. In the robot business, this is called the ready, fire, aim problem. The task, the customer...
