Wait a sec…
I wanna have access to a laser cutter too!!
I have not decided yet. I
I have not decided yet. I would like to make something that i could use on my current wheel maybe.
I would love to cut stuff
I would love to cut stuff out for other people on LMR. Maybe I will hold contests or something. I will deffinetly cut things out for a little cash 
Fire that laser
and cut a disk from .06 phenolic about the diameter of the wheel. Burn a “D” in the center that fits your axle. Slide it on and use that nice flat area on top of your plastic gear box mount to fasten the IR sensor. paint the disc with stripes.
That could work. Then just
That could work. Then just come up with a clean way of mounting the sensor and it should work.
Hmmm. Don’t tell the school
Hmmm. Don’t tell the school you are using their cutter and charging people money. ; j
You can make the disk from
You can make the disk from clear acrylic and engrave the stripes. The stripes that will be left clear will let the light go through and the ones that will be engraved will reflect the light.
Awesome school
In Romania, schools are selling their workshop machinery as scrap iron and your school has a frikin’ laser cutter…
I want to go back to school … to your school.
Neat !
Neat !
Very pretty!
I like that a lot - very neat. Now all you need to do is stick a big ugly rats nest of wires all over it! 
No, I believe Patrick will
No, I believe Patrick will have short and tidy wires for an elegant design that looks factory made! Now if we could only have iluminated fiber optic wires that blink as signal passes through them… And LEDs that make the chassis glow… What a light show would be in the dark and still the robot would follow the line perfectly! Gareth would probably find a way to do it… What do you say Patrick, up for a challenge?
Yeah we got awfully lucky in
Yeah we got awfully lucky in getting this laser cutter. Probably the best thing our school has ever received.
It should look pretty good
It should look pretty good when finished :). I did consider putting LEDs on it, but in the end I decided not to clutter up the design. This is a robot I want to keep doing a pretty specific task. After having 2 versions that I could not get to perform properly, I did not really try and add anything special to this one, I just want the maze solving to work 
Very Clean… As Always
Patrick,
Very nice design! All of your work looks very clean. You’ve got me thinking about going more modular with my prototype components. I like the look of your “Basic Stamp-ish” board for the microcontroller. Going to bang out some new boards soon.
I had toyed with a micromouse for a bit. I solved the maze solving algorithms pretty well, but tracking where I actually am in the maze has really stumped me. I guess it comes down to encoders or relying on the accuracy of stepper motors ( and no slips ). Pololu sells encoders for their micromotors. That’s the cheaper way to go than built in encoders, but I have zero experience with either. Thoughts?
If you are still looking into the maze solving part of the equation, I have a simulator based on a variation of the flood-fill algorithm. It relies heavily on the mouse employing “explore” mode in the first solve(s) and back solves. I envisioned having a button to tell the mouse to explore or speed solve. For most of the old competition mazes I simulated, I needed one if not 2 explore solves to have enough squares known for a speed run. The simulator is in Python, so it is mostly cross-platform. The colors are only guaranteed in Linux Let me know if you are interested. I have links to the source and some mazes. The input mazes are text files of | and _ characters.
In any event, please keep posting updates! I’d love to make some shabby copies of your great work.
polymorph
yeah Gareth would do it with polymorph
Reflectance Sensor Array
Patrick, I was wondering if you made out well with the sensor. I am planning on making a line follower and found that many people used this same sensor. Does it come with the headers and the break away headers? Or is it just the circuit?
Thanks,
Mark
Yeah the sensor works well.
Yeah the sensor works well. This is what it comes with: (so you do not get the female headers)
code
Hey Patrick Well Done!!!
Can you please upload the code cause I m curious to read it?
Wow! Great project, your
Wow! Great project, your code is excellent I would say. The quality of your contruction is great too.
I saw the batteries on ebay,yes they are cheap. Can you tell me if there is a difference between the batteries colors they are selling?
They have the same voltage and amp/h to me. Thanks
I may need to clean it up a
I may need to clean it up a bit and add some comments to make it readable. There is lots of double checking in it that may make it confusing to read some of it right now. I will try to get it up soon.