MEC101 Robot Design Project

Objective

To design, build, and program a robot, which belongs to one of the categories below.

1. Walking Robots: Design and build a walking robot (biped, quadruped, or hexapod, or some other design), which walks at a reasonable speed.

The robot does not have to necessarily walk on a flat ground; it could climb walls or stairs. You can take inspiration from nature to see how various creatures walk and then implement them using a single degree-of-freedom (DOF) linkage system (four-bar or higher) or a multi-degrees-of-freedom mechanism.

A single-DOF mechanism requires only one actuator (motor) to drive it. An example of a 1-DOF system is a four-bar linkage where a certain point of the coupler traces a path taken by the foot of a walking insect. A Multi-DOF system is usually driven by many actuators; for a walking robot, it can be enabled by a set of servos controlling the joint motions of legs. Here are a few examples of walking robots from previous years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BirzmswqKQ (based on single-DOF mechanism)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PqjxoSKUYM (based on single-DOF mechanism)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMEOR7N8RqE ( based on a multi-DOF mechanism)

2. Social Robot

You can design a robot that interacts with human beings, such as a robot that tries to shake your hands, smiles at you, or plays with you. An example from Fall 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQNTMsjc6Wc

3. Autonomous Toy

You can design and build an autonomous toy that would entertain a child or an adult. The choice of motion is your's, but to a child the motion activity of the toy should be amusing. An example is Zhu Zhu hamster, which when released by pressing a button goes around exploring its environment, changing direction of movement when hitting an obstacle and occasionally tries to climb the obstacle while making adorable noises typical of a creature of that size and cuteness. See an amateur youtube video demo of this hamster at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OcoPwQt_js . I urge you to go to a toy store (or spend time online at their web sites) and explore some toys that have interesting motions. Here is an example of soccer ball kicking robot from two years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss6WGz8abf4

Here is an example from Fall 2018; a robot fish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fZJszffg5g

Rules and Design Constraints

1. The Robot should produce a motion that can be termed as either useful or entertaining. The motion must be visible from a distance of at least 5-10 ft. The robot should have at least some sensing capabilities, such as collision avoidance using ultrasonic sensor, infra-red for motion detection, light detection, camera, color sensing, etc.

2. There must be a switch on board that when pressed will initiate the motion that should last no less than 30 seconds and no more than 60 seconds. Program it so that it comes to a stop at the end of 60 seconds.

3. The device must be completely autonomous, which means that no remote control (wired or wireless) is allowed.

4. The motion produced must be a safe one. It should not harm any bystanders or anything in its vicinity.

5. The device must have an on-board battery that will be used to power the machine. You cannot connect it to an AC power outlet.

6. The structure of the machine must be designed and put together by you, which means that you cannot buy a ready-made chassis or frame. The SnappyXO kit provided to you should be sufficient to put together most of your designs. However, if you can justify in your design that you need a certain part not in the SnappyXO kit, you can submit the design to us and we will laser-cut it for you that is if you can pick it up. However, we need at least two weeks of time before the Thanksgiving break to do any custom cutting. You can also use 3D print files if you want to. You can export custom part geometries from MotionGen Pro.

7. You can only buy components that cannot be easily designed and laser-cut, such as motors, any electronic parts, or a 3D Part that cannot be easily laser cut. Glue-guns should be used as a last resort as they will lead to point reduction. You should create your design such that you can assemble the planar pieces in the SnappyXO kit to realize your design. Hacks are strongly discouraged.

8. The robot must be programmed using an Arduino microcontroller (Uno, Mega, nano, or any other ones).

9. The entire robot should fit in a box of size 1’x1’ x1’. If you need to create an environment to demo the robot, such as a maze, you can do that and will not count against the size of the robot. For certain robots, if approved by me, I can make an exception on the size.