Tuesday 24th November 2009
Wallace the utility bot.
Have laminate flooring, I have noticed how the floor seems to get quite dusty. I certainly didn't want to sweep up all the time, and I'm sure the wife doesn't want to. So I thought about what I could do, stumbled onto this *awesome* website and decided to try and built a cleaning robot.
As I wanted it to work while we went around our daily lives, I didn't want a vacuum noise going on. So Wallace is designed to use a "dustpan and brush" system with a removable but enclosed tray (to stop the dust flicking out or over the pan).
Wallace will use sensors to avoid objects, turning 45 degrees a time.Will go right up to the walls.
2 thin wheels with rubber tyres and a 3rd wheel at the rear for stability.
1cm ground clearance.
Wednesday 25th November 2009
I haven't ordered any parts yet, but I have attempted to contact a company who are offering very cheap 5mm acrylic. Hopefully they have black. I'm still "mentally" designing Wallace and jotting things down on paper at work. I'll hopefully have some sort of design ready this week!
So far I think I have settled for a sort of half moon more like " D " shape. It will have a motor powered brush (like a vacuum brush) and built by myself using a PVC pipe and some sort of bristles, old paint brushes, actual dust pan bristles, make up brushes etc. The crap/dust/etc will be swept into a top removable Perspex cube for easy disposal of the rubbish.
Still trying to decide on how to do the object sensor.
- Actuators / output devices: 2 x 298:1 High Power Geared Motors, Power HD Standard Analogue Servo
- Control method: Picaxe 28 Starter Pack
- CPU: picaxe 18x
- Power source: Batteries
- Programming language: Picaxe basic
- Sensors / input devices: Sharp GP2D120 IR sensor
- Target environment: Indoors - Smooth - Laminate etc
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://community.robotshop.com/robots/show/wallace-utility-robot-start-here-bot