Concept
This robot was built for the Fall 2018 MAE 3780 Mechatronics robotics competition, in collaboration with Dylan Hoang and Grainger Sasso. At competition, robots are paired against each other and must attempt to move as many cubes as possible to their opponents side. Our robot, named “Fine Mini Banjo”, was a search-and-pursue robot. Our objective was to find the other robot and push them out of the field while simultaneously pushing as many cubes as possible to the other side. To achieve this goal, our robot used two large deployable large arms as well as two front-mounted sonar sensors.
For this project, I designed the frame housing for the robot, programmed the QTI sensors, wired the initial setup, as well as spent many late nights debugging the code and testing the various functions of the robot with my team.
Strategy Flowchart
As the match begins and before the tracking task starts, we implemented a hard code instructing the robot to move forward a set distance, thus we make sure to push some cubes over to the enemy’s side. After moving forward, if one of the 2 sonar sensors picks up a distance less than 70cm, it will start following the enemy robot right away. If not, the robot will back up, and do a sweep left to right that encompass the range of the entire enemy’s field. If it detects the enemy robot, our robot will approach it, and will only stop when it reaches the black line. Hitting a black line will trigger one of the 2 QTIs, which in turn will make the robot back off and restart the seek and push function.
Mechanical Design
Per competition rules, our robot could not be wider than 8" x 8" at the start of competition, so one large mechanical challenge for our team was figuring out how to deploy our 18" arm wingspan at the start of competition. Our quick fix solution was to place two adhesives pads on either end of a popsicle stick, with each adhesive sticking against each arm. A string was tied around the middle of the popsicle stick and wrapped around two vertical pins that mount to a bar attached to an "arm-specific" motor. As the motor spins, the string will wrap around the pins and be pulled away from the arms, releasing the adhesive connection between the arms and popsicle stick, and letting the arms drop.
CAD
Starting arm orientation
Deployed arm orientation
Top down view of electronics and arm release mechanism
Competition Video