Spring 2004
The Colorado School of Mines Robotics Club has numerous competitions throughout the year involving LEGO Mindstorms kits.
The objective: design a robot that will collect marbles in an enclosed area. I know, it's an awesome idea...but anyway...
Rules: Use a Mindstorms kit (which includes one RCX, two motors, two touch sensors, one light sensor, many random parts)
The initial design went through 2 revisions. Here is my robot from start to finish.
Concept Drawing
Build 1
Movie 1 | Movie 2 | Movie 3 | Movie 4 | Movie 5
The dual tread and the antenna things in front (which guide the marbles underneath) are about the only things that remained constant throughout construction.
The wings were for awesomeness, but didn't make the final cut unfortunately.
The arm in front has a touch sensor salvaged from an earlier project. This would have worked...if obstacles would remain in front of the robot.
It could still easily be obstructed from the side given the right angle. Time to rethink this.
Build 2
Changes: added touch sensors to both sides, added light sensor in front, added driver for good measure.
The light sensor detect dark and light...the idea was to have the tire hanging over the sensor so when it
would hit a wall in front, the sensor itself would detect darkness. It worked somewhat, but didn't work when hitting at an angle.
The new touch sensors worked like a charm, and since they do stick out in front a bit I decided to dump the light sensor.
Build 3
Movie 1 | Movie 2 | Movie 3 | Movie 4
Gone is the light sensor and the wings. But the thing work great. Just need to find some marbles now....