I made this blog to tell you all about my latest project, after my Robotic Arm project has died out a little.
This little thing will be my first actual "robot". The whole idea behind it is that I will have a platform which will be easy to further develop, and thus be awesome to learn new stuff.
The platform itself has "only" 3 layers right now. On the bottom layer I will store my 4xAA battery pack, the layer above it will support my Arduino UNO, and above that will be empty. I will create 3 layers to stack above my Arduino, so I can add/remove sensors or whatever. The idea behind this is that I can add IR sensors/transmitters to communicate with another identical bot, or add some awesome looking RGBLed to make the bot look more awesome. Basicly this makes the sky the limit, and thus enhance my creativity.
This blog is mostly intended to get support/advice from all of you pro's out there, 'cause it will be like 2/3 more weeks untill I can laserprint my design (University is closed right now, bummer).
As you may see from the pictures, there will be a HC-SR04 sensor at the front of the bot. I decided to make it fixxed at the front, instead of using a servo to look around. Will this be a good idea? This keeps the weight/structure consistency down a little, though it will not enhance the robot quality. What do you all suggest?
The motors/wheels are the cheapest ones I could find at our lovely Ebay. I think they were like 10 euro's for 4, so thats nice :)
You want to be careful with how high/low you mount your ultrasonic sensor. The “cone” of the sound may interact with the floor before it meets a true obstacle.
On other points, you may want to consider an alternative to a standard arduino board. You might want to consider one of the more robotics based boards. Maybe even a board like RocketBrandStudios Nano with an undershield with a motor driver. My thinking is that a stock arduino will be somewhat wasted in your setup, because you will still require a motor driver board. If you instead purchase a board meant to drive motors, you could then use the extra pins to control your expansions.
I personally think to build a robot like you are considering, I would utilize SPI and/or I2C, and then use those buses to communicate with my added levels. It would add complexity, but, I think the compexity would be worth it both in layout and learning.
Another option for the mainboard would be to build an “arduino” on a breadboard and add the required h-bridge. That would cut down on the cleanliness of the design, but, would make for easy changes. Or, you could expand your knowledge and make your own board, so, you could in the future design your add on boards as you please.
Sorry for the looong[sic] windedness of the post. I just kept thinking of more thoughts/opinions to pass on.
Good design RMW. The sensor fixed in the front is ok when you don’t need to look around all the time. In that case you can just turn the whole robot. This is just a convenience and with a sensor on a servo you could save a bit of power. On the other side you need to add the sweep in the programming…your choice…both options are ok.
