Objective Avoidance Robot
What is this?
This is a robot that has sensors that can sense any object from 2-3
meters.
Materials:
·
RoboRED
(Arduino UNO compatible Microcomputer: Robot Brain)
·
Robot chassis with 2 DC motors and wheels
·
Battery pack for 6 AA batteries (Suggest rechargeable)
·
Motor Driver Board (Controls motors speed and direction)
·
Ultrasonic distance sensor (Looks for things in the way) with
mounting bracket
·
ServoMotor (Points the Distance Sensor in different directions)
·
40-wire Rainbow cable (Connect the parts)
·
Pin strips (Connect the parts)
·
USB Cable (For uploading software to the RoboRED)
·
How to make an object avoidance robot:
First, you will attach these parts to the robot chassis and then
connect them electrically:
1.
Motor
Driver Board
2.
RoboRED
3.
DC
Motors
4.
ServoMotor
5.
Ultrasonic
Distance Sensor
6.
Battery
Case
(Before Attaching
the Motor Driver Board to the chassis, check to make sure that the stand-offs
are attached to the board. If they are not, first insert the
BoardPositions1-1024.jpg"stand offs" provided with the motor driver
board to the bottom side of the board and screw the nuts on the top of the
stand offs to hold them in place. Then attach the motor driver board to the
robot chassis using 4 of the 8mm long machine screws. Orient the black
heat-sink toward the front of the robot chassis.
RoboRED: Attach
the RoboRED to the chassis using 2 of the 10mm machine screws and nuts.Find the
small silver coloured switch near the USB connector, labelled 3V3 and 5V. Make
sure this switch is pushed to the 5V position. Locate the 4 Motor Mounts. Use 2
at a time to attach each motor to the chassis. On the underside of the Robot
Chassis, place the motors with their wires facing towards the centre of the
chassis and close to the edge of the RoboRED.)
1 bracket
is inserted up through a centre slot and the 2nd bracket goes in a slot on the
outer edge of the chassis. Turn the chassis over and insert the long machine
screws through the outer brackets, through the holes in the motor, and through
the inner bracket. Attach two nuts and tighten just snug.
2.
Connect the other end of the cable you made to the Motor Driver, with each
colored wire connecting to the corresponding pin on the motor driver board, as
shown in the table above.
3.
Now, attach the Red and Black wires from the motors to the Motor Driver Board.
Looking at the 2 smaller blue terminal blocks on the Motor Driver Board, the
Black wire is attached on the left and the Red wire is attached on the right
(Use the flat end of the screwdriver to loosen the tiny screws in
the terminal block, up to the level of the top of the blue plastic. (They may
fall out if you go any higher.) You may want to insert a toothpick or other
small round object into the terminal strip to enlarge the space a bit to allow
the wire to go into place easily. Then tighten the screws moderately. Pull on
the wires a little to be sure they are secure. Now turn the chassis around and
attach the wires on the other side!)
4. Now
you will wire power from the RoboRED "Vin" and "Gnd" pins
to the motor driver. Strip off a section from your ribbon cable with just 2
wires: Red and Brown wires. You will need to remove the black plastic coverings
that are over the metal terminals on one end of your cable. Remove the plastic
parts as shown in the photos below.
5. For
the other end of the cable, find the "Pin Strip" and break off a
small section of 3 or 4 pins wide. Plug that into the Yellow terminal strip on
the RoboRED that is closest to the caster wheel. Notice the pins labelled
"Vin" and "GND".You need to plug the Red wire into the
"Vin" pin (on the end of the yellow strip), and the Brown wire to the
"GND" pin which is the next one over. Use the pin strips to make the
cable end connect to the yellow strip (Yellow row), and finally Yellow to pin 3
Signal (yellow row). Carefully push the wheels onto the motor axles. Hold the
motor securely with one hand and push against the far end of the white axle as
you push the wheel in place!
6.
Next we are going to program the RoboRED to test some different parts of the
robot. Later we will install the more complex software which uses all the parts
to run the robot around and avoid obstacles. First you need to have the Arduino
"IDE" software development system installed on your computer and
working
7. You
should have the IDE installed, the RoboRED on your robot connected to your
computer with the USB cable and the "Blink" Program successfully
uploaded and run.
By: Nada, Rozita & Famke
