Monday was yet another productive start to the week for Jim and I. More testing was done on RFID tags, and we fully ironed out our IR line following. However, on Wednesday tragedy struck.

Ever since we first had started messing around with RFID tags, there have been issues. with our 125kHz reader, we could never find a tag small enough to be used with our floor tiles. To solve the problem, we upgraded to a 13.56MHz reader and nifty little three millimeter tags. However, we were never able to get the reader to properly identify the tags. So instead we bought a different, more widely used version of the reader that came with a pre-made Python library. Once we got that up and running, we thought we were in the clear, but on Wednesday we found that due to the small antenna on the RFID tag it cannot be read if it is within one centimeter of the metal floor tiles.

Because the deadline of the project is drawing near, Jim and I decided to save both money and time and scrap the idea of using RFID in its entirety. Instead, we will be focusing our efforts on two ideas that we had as possible replacements.

The first idea we had was to give QR codes a second chance. If we can minimized the amount of time each poll takes, we would be able to make a track of QR codes along the floor. Our second idea is to use a color-sensitive light sensor in combination with colored tiles to determine the next command.

Next week will be hammering out these new navigation methods, wish us luck!