uC Robot (Micro Crawler)

Robotics and electronics discussion Share your projects
1

So I started a new robot at the beginning of last week. Did it in CAD first, and then started building. Ordered a bunch of parts, mostly from Pololu. 3D printed a bunch of parts.

Here’s the CAD model:

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Although it probably doesn’t look it, its a tiny little thing - 102mm long, 91mm wide, and 50mm high. That’s about 4" x 3.75" x 2" for non-metric people. It uses Lego Technic tracks, but everything else structural (wheels, chassis) are 3D printed.

I’m going to be using a Teensy 3.1 as the main processor, and I have a Pololu 2-motor h-bridge (an old one I bought a few years ago and never used). I ordered the micro gearmotors (100:1) with the encoder back shafts, along with the encoders. I also ordered the MiniIMU-9 v2, and a BlueSMiRF Silver for wireless communications. It also has 3 Sharp IR sensors and it will also have 3 ProxDot close-range IR sensors.

Here are a couple pics of my progress so far:

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Note that those aren’t the gearmotors I ordered - they are just some that are the same size that I had in a drawer. The paper printout is a PCB I designed that has been submitted to OSH Park (http://oshpark.com) to hold the Teensy, and provide plugs for all the sensors and motor drivers and such.

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I’m planning on writing a GUI on my Android phone to get status from the robot while its wandering around (it will be fully autonomous) over bluetooth serial.

I have more pictures and writing on my blog: http://blog.huv.com

- Jon

2

Hello, Jon.

That is a very cool robot! Thank you for sharing. I love the low profile shape. Please keep us posted with your progress! When you get it up and running, I would like to add it to our community projects page. A video of it running would be great too!

-Derrill

3

I updated my blog (http://blog.huv.com/2013/12/uc-microcrawler.html), here’s one of the images from it:

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- Jon

4

New blog post up where I talk about the range sensors I’m using on this robot, and how I’m compensating for close range sensing.

http://blog.huv.com/2013/12/ucee-of-rangefinders-and-proxdots.html

- Jon

5

Here’s a video of uCee rolling around, avoiding obstacles, running MicroPython on a Teensy 3.1:

Once we get interrupts working in MicroPython, I’ll get the encoders working and make it go in a more or less straight line.

- Jon

6

Thank you for posting the update on your robot project. It looks like it is really coming along nicely.

Keep up the good work!

-Derrill