This article is not finished yet. It seems to be good enough by wednesday evening (april first) or thursday mourning. So please be patient and come back soon if you have seen this warning.
The first revision of my robots had to match some requirements:
1. it has to be easy to install the controller on it.
2. easy access to battery (If one's charge gets low you don't want to reassemble the whole robot to change it).
3. allow to reconfigure the sensors easily (due to make fast adaptations to rules for different competitions).
4. Black line sensors have to be adjustable to the line width;
5. other sensors have to be easily installed or removed when necessary.
6. Robot has to look nice.
The first thing is to decide where to draw. We have legal copies of corel draw in our lab, so I used this when I was designing this press-fit kit. But it is also possible to use inkscape, so I shall make svg-export of this blueprints and illustrate how to make those nice shapes both in corel draw and in inkscape. I guess this will ease the way to use my design for everyone.
Now (when I had some time to practice with my robots, I see that some other requirements need to be added. These problems I haven't solved yet, though I think that it worth to mention them:
- Controller case looks much more cute than a bunch of wires sticking from controller pcb
- If we want to advance our robot functionality, we may sometimes need to install some additional boards such as external ADC or motor drivers with feedback on wheel's speed. So we need to have some slots for them.
- It is easier to use the ready-to-go controlles or dev-kits like arduino or TI launchpad, but it is much better to use self-made controllers. Working with such self-made controllers gives students an opportunity to see that it is possible to make differet things and I think that it might encourage them to make something on thir own.
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