Jetson Foundations

Super fun kickoff day designed to get every kid instantly excited!

• Welcome & Robot Reveal: Dramatic unboxing of all three robots (Rover, Dog, Humanoid) with lights & music
• Quick Wow Demos: Watch Humanoid wave, Dog walk, Rover zoom – then name your team robot
• Jetson Orin Nano Setup: Flash JetPack, first boot, connect to WiFi – you do it yourself
• Rover Assembly & First Drive: Mount board, wire motors & ultrasonic, write your first Python script
• 30-Minute Challenge: Make your Rover do a victory dance (spin + lights) – everyone cheers!

Mission: “Rover Recon” – Navigate obstacles and stop in target zone. First real success on hardware!

• Full mechanical assembly of the 12-servo Dog chassis
• Wire high-voltage servos to Jetson PWM board
• Calibrate all joints safely
• Write and test walk + trot gaits in Python on real Jetson
• Use Rover for formation testing
• Humanoid live walking demo

Mission: “Formation Patrol” – Dog + Rover move together and cross bridge. Dog is the star!

• Wire & calibrate additional sensors (IMU, IR, limit switches) on Rover & Dog
• Implement sensor reading + filtering (moving average)
• Code PID controller in Python for heading/speed (Rover) & balance (Dog)
• Tune PID gains live (Kp, Ki, Kd) using terminal or simple plots
• Test closed-loop wall following & obstacle avoidance
• Humanoid balance demo using same IMU/PID concepts

Mission: “Sensor Challenge Relay” – Rover → Dog → Humanoid handoff. Full sequence on real hardware.

• Mount CSI camera on Jetson (Rover & Dog focus)
• Install OpenCV → implement color/blob detection & tracking
• Build finite state machine (FSM) for behavior switching
• Add simple Bluetooth/WiFi inter-robot comms
• Integrate vision into FSM (e.g., detect red → stop & signal)
• Full-system dry run & heavy debugging
• Humanoid gesture demo using same vision code

Mission: “Multi-Robot Search” – Coordinated search & retrieval (Rover + Dog primary).

• Morning: Final hardware tweaks & full-system integration
• Run complete USAR mission in prepared arena
• Collect run times, logs, failure modes
• Prepare team presentation (problem → solution → demo → lessons)
• Afternoon: Ethics roundtable + 8-minute live showcase
• Humanoid used for final “rescue handoff” demo

Capstone Mission: Dog-Led Urban Search & Rescue

Dog navigates rubble/stairs, Rover scouts flat zones, Humanoid locates & delivers object. Success = complete mission under 6 min, no critical failures, clean handover.