About the Project
The objective of this project is to create a robot (max 15cm x 15cm, length x width) which can climb up a laser-cut hill and stay on the top as long as possible to earn points. The longer you stay on the top of the hill, the more points you get, and the person with the most points at the end, wins. (Points are detected using rfid tags which are attached to each robot).
Preliminary Drawings
The idea of this first preliminary drawing is to attach a propeller on the top of my robot to try and get other robots to move out of the way and get my robot to the top as soon as possible.
My second idea was to use suction cups and attach them to the bottom of my robot to keep it in place at the top of the hill. I ended up going with a similar design idea to this, except since suction cups are hard to stick onto the surface of the plywood of the hill, I am researching more about an easy to use material to attach at the bottom of my robot in order to prevent others from pushing my robot off the hill.
This third idea uses inspiration from military tanks in its wheels to try and make the robot as sturdy as possible, making it very hard to push.
Very Preliminary Onshape Modeling
Uses a basic four wheel drive gear system that uses one motor on each side to turn the two wheels on that side. The front has a inclined slope attached to it to make pushing other robots easier. I want to make this slope automated in the future by adding a hinge.
In this model, I am using a cam mechanism powered by a microservo to push the friction material (black part in the image) onto the ground. The screw will also have a spring attached to it to help bring the friction material back up. I will also need more support for this mechanism.
The Two Stage Gear System
I updated my gear system to a two stage one and made my wheels thicker so that my robot can be even harder to push.
First Physical Prototype
Check back soon for coding & results!