Maze Solving Robot

DESCRIPTION

This is a maze solving robot I've been working on for our annual robotic competition. Some parts are bought and some parts were lying around collecting dust. So here is my instructables to make a decent maze solving robot. I will be adding steps as I make progress and this will be my first post, so bare with me. Feel free to add your suggestions and feedbacks to improve this robot as i will be keep working on it...

Step 1: Parts

Description:

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1, Kid Galaxy Toy that was lying around, I've decided to take its wheel platform as the base for the robot. You could make your own if you prefer so, but make sure you dont hook the wheels directly to the dc motor as there wouldnt be enough torque to carry the payloads and your mice will stall and eat your battery juice(learned this hard way from my very first prototype). add gears to generate torque. This toy base seems to have good gear system for a decent torque and speed for the competiton. two wheels on both sides are linked so they rotates same direction using one motor, other side is the same and have another dedicate motor. so two motors to control two individual sides. In fact, I noticed, the professionals in International Micromouse competitions use the same drive method.

2, Arduino UNO [Amazon]

3, Adafruit Motorshield for the UNO [Amazon]

4, Parallax 3-Axis gyro [Parallax]

5, Parallax Ping))) ultrasonic sensor ( x 3) [Parallax]

6, 12x12 Acrylic sheet (1/16 in) [ Lowe's]

7, 3/4in standoffs [Radioshack]

8, 9V battery holder (x 2) (im using two batteries, one to power the motors, and another to power everything else)

9, some nuts and bolts. [Lowe's]

I will add more details for the listed parts soon....

Step 2: Solidworks

Description:

I use Soldworks to design and cut the Acrylic sheet in order to make more room for the gadgets by creating the robot base, sensor and micro controller mounts.For those who dont have access to a CAD tool such as Solidworks, you can manually do it by cutting the acrylic using any cutting tool as per the given dimensions. For me, I have access to Solidworks and CNC laser cutter, which help me spend less time and less human error. Either way it will work.

PS: I have attached the solidworks part files and a PDF drawing files with measurements for those who wanna manually cut the acrylic. Measurements are in inches unless specified otherwise.

There is an L-backet you need to mount the Ping mount to the base plate. I am not attaching the CAD file for the L-bracket since I made it by manually cutting out from the sheet. In order to get the L shape, I had to heat it then bend it. If you are not careful with the bending, you may not get the bend on the same exact position for the three required pieces, which will make the ping sensors look uneven when mounted. So I cut out a longer square piece then bend it. that way I can make sure the L-brackets are even shaped. You could also buy L-backets off the shelf and use it if you want to avoid the trouble of heating the acrylic.