Maker Pro

Meccano robot

Anon_LG

Jun 24, 2014
453
Joined
Jun 24, 2014
Messages
453
Lavaguava submitted a new Showcase Item:

ACTUATOR

I saved up for ages to build an expensive project, this is the project I chose. The robot is of completely original design and is an ongoing project as is this page. Currently the robot has: a completed chassis with an Arduino MEGA in a protective case mounted, and the steppers with their control boards mounted on the flanged panels at the side. The chassis is made out of meccano as I do not have access to advanced plastic/metal fabrication facilities, 3d printer nor design software to send off for a 3d printed chassis, maybe next time though. The cassis has used up ALL my meccano except for a few small pieces, I would have liked to make the chassis parallel to the ground (currently it is tilted forwards slightly). Currently the robot is able to move so long as it stays tethered to my USB port, I hope to add a litium battery and Adafruit's mintyboost. The front wheels are independently controlled with a stepper motor for each, movement is slow due to the use of stepper motors.

The future functions planned are:

Line following: 2 phototransistors and LED's, the standard line following system

Capacitive switches: to cycle between dark line follow, light line follow and I may even implement a line detect and follow feature. 6 switches will be available (Adafruit 6 key capacitive touch sensor), the other 5 will have other functions

Ultrasonic distance sensor: 2 ultrasonic distance sensors will be placed at the front of the robot, 1 facing forwards for collision avoidance and 1 facing down for drop/ground clearance sensing

Read more about this showcase item here...
 

Anon_LG

Jun 24, 2014
453
Joined
Jun 24, 2014
Messages
453
Lavaguava updated ACTUATOR

I saved up for ages to build an expensive project, this is the project I chose. The robot is of completely original design and is an ongoing project as is this page. Currently the robot has: a completed chassis with an Arduino MEGA in a protective case mounted, and the steppers with their control boards mounted on the flanged panels at the side. The chassis is made out of meccano as I do not have access to advanced plastic/metal fabrication facilities, 3d printer nor design software to send off for a 3d printed chassis, maybe next time though. The cassis has used up ALL my meccano except for a few small pieces, I would have liked to make the chassis parallel to the ground (currently it is tilted forwards slightly). Currently the robot is able to move so long as it stays tethered to my USB port, I hope to add a litium battery and Adafruit's mintyboost. The front wheels are independently controlled with a stepper motor for each, movement is slow due to the use of stepper motors.

Below I will document the parts required to build the, I will need comments (to know that people want to know) if I am to list all of the parts

HARDWARE:

Wheels:
Front: 2* 50mm diameter wheels, brought from 4tronix: here
Back: 2* 32mm single wheels casters, brought from Homebase: here

Motors:
Front: 2*Stepper motors

Components
Controller: 1*Arduino MEGA 2560
Motor amplification: 2*TTL darlington array (4*darlingtons) with PCB
1*ultrasonic distance sensor
A whole lot of jumper wires

The future functions planned are:

Line following: 2 phototransistors and LED's, the standard line following system

Capacitive switches: to cycle between dark line follow, light line follow and I may even implement a line detect and follow feature. 6 switches will be available (Adafruit 6 key capacitive touch sensor), the other 5 will have other functions

Ultrasonic distance sensor: 2 ultrasonic distance sensors will be placed at the front of the robot, 1 facing forwards for collision avoidance and 1 facing down for drop/ground clearance sensing

3 axis accelerometer: Will provide tilt and roll sensing, will probably be connected to a buzzer to make the robot whine if it flips

Below is the current code. This implements the basic movement using steppers and the use of 1 ultrasonic distance sensor. Yes, there is some useless stuff in there...

View updates to this showcase item...
 

Jeff Nevil

Sep 15, 2015
4
Joined
Sep 15, 2015
Messages
4
This looks great! Thanks for sharing, are you pleased with the final result? How long did this take all in all would you say (roughly)?

Jeff
 
Top