ROBOTICS PROJECTS

The design and control of an autonomous robot is extremely relevant to my program. I have quite a bit of experience in programming robots. As part of a 2nd year electrical engineering course, I worked with a partner to program a small, autonomous robot, called the QBot, to navigate through a maze. The QBot used servo motors controlled by a Motorola 68HC11 processor. It also used several sensing systems to find its way through the maze. I was required to write a number of routines in assembly language to allow the QBot to process the information it received from its sensors and to respond accordingly. Later, in a 3rd year electrical engineering course, I completed a similar project involving the precise positioning of a servo motor in response to user input. I have also taken courses in C and Java, and am a skilled programmer, having received 93% in my first year programming course. I believe that this type of experience would be a great asset in the work place.

While I feel that my technical background is particularly well suited, I believe that an even greater asset is my eagerness to learn and contribute to my fullest ability. In my experiences so far at Queen’s, I have found the QBot and servo positioning projects mentioned above to be among my favourite assignments. I really enjoy overcoming the multitude of challenges that present themselves in such projects, and I find it very satisfying to see a lifeless piece of machinery transformed into a functional robot. I feel that my love of this type of work makes me an ideal candidate for summer employment in the field.