Return of the prodigal son
This story is about how I built a mobile robot platform and the future of my “NanoBot-a” ...
It all started back in 2008, when I was young, naive and stupid, I was engaged in robotics and various mechatronics in general. The idea of building a big cart settled in my lush head much earlier, and now, after long carrying out the manufacturing plan, I began to build this miracle of children's thoughts.
And I begat this prototype:
')
Frame of square tube section 25x25mm. And its overall dimensions are 500x500x300 mm. Well, yes, I thought then on a large scale ... Two geared motors from the UAZ car wiper, driving wheels from a small children's bicycle, and two front vane wheels stood in front of this thing. And this giant was built in the apartment.
Since the plans for the behavior algorithms were “Napoleonic”, there was a full-fledged computer on board the robot, there was no money on mini-ITX, and I found an ordinary PC on an ATX mom. All this stuck it inside and up to a heap of two more helium batteries, sheathed all the three-millimeter org. glass and, in general, the thing was partly beautiful, but very large and heavy. I never managed to set it in motion, as there were difficulties with electronics, and I occasionally threw the project, then started to work on it again ...
In the end, I realized that this design is very cumbersome, and since the main idea was still in my head, it was decided to start all over again ...
Almost a year later I began designing. Then I was just interested in CAD and tried to study them myself, as a result I made the drawings first in AutoCAD and later translated them to 3D (when I began to study KOMPAS 3D). I will lay out the drawings and the model for free access, if not many people will find it useful or interesting.
I gave the drawings to one familiar factory, where I was made a frame for a couple of bottles of vodka (Russia - for which the road is). In terms of dimensions, it was already smaller than the previous 300x300x200, and was made from the twentieth corner. Additionally, laser CNC plates for engine mounting and a container for laying two 12 volt batteries were cut out.
Since all this was done long enough, the frame had time to rust, later, I gave it to the powder painting. To the engines directly through additional axle shafts mounted in ball bearings, wheels were attached with a diameter of 125mm. Front mounted one small vane wheel. I decided to sheathe the frame with iron, then it seemed more technological than cutting out of an org. glass, as I knew the office where they cut steel on the CNC, and then it would be possible to paint it in any color ...
With a frame like everything is clear, let's move on to electronics. It was planned to control the robot remotely from a PC, and on board the robot also planned to install some of the smaller computers. By that time, I had already managed to cut an old ASUS netbook from a relative, it fit perfectly in the upper part of the robot above the batteries. But one netbook is not enough to control the robot, for this it was required to buy three more boards from Open Robotics, an AVR microcontroller-based board for managing and collecting data OR-AVR-M128-DS, a board for communicating with the netbook OR-USB-UART and power card driver OR-MD2-10A-12V-X, now I would certainly have done everything on the Arduino, but then it was not so popular, and these modules were designed specifically for robotic carts. It was planned to connect several range finder sensors, a pair of encoders to the control board, and planned to control several servos to change the scan angle of the range finders. I wanted to make a range finder based on a laser pointer and a video camera. But it never came to that, everything was limited to connecting the electronics and writing a simple control program. Managed remotely using the program TeamViewer. In my program there was a simple connection to the port, a window for receiving data transmission, a speed input line (PWM in percent), and several directional buttons.
As a result, due to lack of understanding with electronics, the project was left without proper attention, it was done extremely rarely once. Over time, I realized that it was a pity to throw out the development or put it in the garage. Decided to sell for a symbolic value. I thought that probably there are people who are interested too, who are better at electronics and programming, maybe someone is working out some behavior / movement algorithms, well, or someone just needs an advertising platform in the exhibition hall or shop (of course he could break his legs ).
Sold entirely with electronics, battery, netbook, range finders, servami (rectangular cutouts with two holes in the lower and upper round cover for MG996r servos), 16x2 display, and a pair of LED matrices (square cutouts in the front facing sheet just below them).
As I understood, the person who bought my robot platform gave her a second life. I was glad that this piece of iron would live. It was in 2016, and the journey began from the glorious city of Ivanovo, to the hero city of Tula.
However, just recently a third owner contacted me and said that he now has a platform (Kaliningrad region). Apparently, something went wrong for the first buyer ... The person who contacted me did not disappoint me, but the platform was handed to him without some accompanying components, but otherwise everything seems to be whole, not surprisingly, since the casing of the robot is made of metal 1.5 mm thickness, it is time for him to participate in the battles of robots ...
The robot has received some upgrade, and this is what the new owner wrote about:
“The platform came to me. By some manipulations, a 10 Ah 12V battery was installed, a TL-MR3020 router with custom firmware OpenRobotisc was added, a Logitek S270 webcam on the servo crown, a 4-port microcomputer and a DC-DC converter for powering the router. Then it was all fastened with ties, tape and other improvised means. "He is alive! (C) Robotzip" Hellish iron 18 kg fool rushing around in a small room as scalded and capable of at best knocking off his feet, and at worst breaking his legs ... It’s necessary to change the wheels for normal ones, change the support wheel, properly fix the electronics and reclaim wires And after all the improvements and improvements this wonder-box will be able to drive around the yard scaring the cat and the drunk neighbor. And if you put the Chinese manipulator on 6 servahs, then you can paw objects remotely. ”
And this is from the most recent, the latest news:
Here is such a story turned out about my baby, I hope that the new owner will not abandon the robot, and he will live for a long time (both the owner and the robot). Otherwise, the fate of the platform to be buried under the apple tree to saturate the soil with iron. This, of course, is a definite benefit for the apple tree, but not the direct purpose of the created robot.
As for the name "NanoBot", then everything is quite simple. Probably many people remember a huge amount of advertising (by zombie box), in which there was such a popular prefix "nano", that I decided to add this prefix to the name of my robot, especially since it fully characterized its physical parameters.
It all started back in 2008, when I was young, naive and stupid, I was engaged in robotics and various mechatronics in general. The idea of building a big cart settled in my lush head much earlier, and now, after long carrying out the manufacturing plan, I began to build this miracle of children's thoughts.
And I begat this prototype:
')
Frame of square tube section 25x25mm. And its overall dimensions are 500x500x300 mm. Well, yes, I thought then on a large scale ... Two geared motors from the UAZ car wiper, driving wheels from a small children's bicycle, and two front vane wheels stood in front of this thing. And this giant was built in the apartment.
Since the plans for the behavior algorithms were “Napoleonic”, there was a full-fledged computer on board the robot, there was no money on mini-ITX, and I found an ordinary PC on an ATX mom. All this stuck it inside and up to a heap of two more helium batteries, sheathed all the three-millimeter org. glass and, in general, the thing was partly beautiful, but very large and heavy. I never managed to set it in motion, as there were difficulties with electronics, and I occasionally threw the project, then started to work on it again ...
In the end, I realized that this design is very cumbersome, and since the main idea was still in my head, it was decided to start all over again ...
Almost a year later I began designing. Then I was just interested in CAD and tried to study them myself, as a result I made the drawings first in AutoCAD and later translated them to 3D (when I began to study KOMPAS 3D). I will lay out the drawings and the model for free access, if not many people will find it useful or interesting.
I gave the drawings to one familiar factory, where I was made a frame for a couple of bottles of vodka (Russia - for which the road is). In terms of dimensions, it was already smaller than the previous 300x300x200, and was made from the twentieth corner. Additionally, laser CNC plates for engine mounting and a container for laying two 12 volt batteries were cut out.
Since all this was done long enough, the frame had time to rust, later, I gave it to the powder painting. To the engines directly through additional axle shafts mounted in ball bearings, wheels were attached with a diameter of 125mm. Front mounted one small vane wheel. I decided to sheathe the frame with iron, then it seemed more technological than cutting out of an org. glass, as I knew the office where they cut steel on the CNC, and then it would be possible to paint it in any color ...
With a frame like everything is clear, let's move on to electronics. It was planned to control the robot remotely from a PC, and on board the robot also planned to install some of the smaller computers. By that time, I had already managed to cut an old ASUS netbook from a relative, it fit perfectly in the upper part of the robot above the batteries. But one netbook is not enough to control the robot, for this it was required to buy three more boards from Open Robotics, an AVR microcontroller-based board for managing and collecting data OR-AVR-M128-DS, a board for communicating with the netbook OR-USB-UART and power card driver OR-MD2-10A-12V-X, now I would certainly have done everything on the Arduino, but then it was not so popular, and these modules were designed specifically for robotic carts. It was planned to connect several range finder sensors, a pair of encoders to the control board, and planned to control several servos to change the scan angle of the range finders. I wanted to make a range finder based on a laser pointer and a video camera. But it never came to that, everything was limited to connecting the electronics and writing a simple control program. Managed remotely using the program TeamViewer. In my program there was a simple connection to the port, a window for receiving data transmission, a speed input line (PWM in percent), and several directional buttons.
As a result, due to lack of understanding with electronics, the project was left without proper attention, it was done extremely rarely once. Over time, I realized that it was a pity to throw out the development or put it in the garage. Decided to sell for a symbolic value. I thought that probably there are people who are interested too, who are better at electronics and programming, maybe someone is working out some behavior / movement algorithms, well, or someone just needs an advertising platform in the exhibition hall or shop (of course he could break his legs ).
Sold entirely with electronics, battery, netbook, range finders, servami (rectangular cutouts with two holes in the lower and upper round cover for MG996r servos), 16x2 display, and a pair of LED matrices (square cutouts in the front facing sheet just below them).
As I understood, the person who bought my robot platform gave her a second life. I was glad that this piece of iron would live. It was in 2016, and the journey began from the glorious city of Ivanovo, to the hero city of Tula.
However, just recently a third owner contacted me and said that he now has a platform (Kaliningrad region). Apparently, something went wrong for the first buyer ... The person who contacted me did not disappoint me, but the platform was handed to him without some accompanying components, but otherwise everything seems to be whole, not surprisingly, since the casing of the robot is made of metal 1.5 mm thickness, it is time for him to participate in the battles of robots ...
The robot has received some upgrade, and this is what the new owner wrote about:
“The platform came to me. By some manipulations, a 10 Ah 12V battery was installed, a TL-MR3020 router with custom firmware OpenRobotisc was added, a Logitek S270 webcam on the servo crown, a 4-port microcomputer and a DC-DC converter for powering the router. Then it was all fastened with ties, tape and other improvised means. "He is alive! (C) Robotzip" Hellish iron 18 kg fool rushing around in a small room as scalded and capable of at best knocking off his feet, and at worst breaking his legs ... It’s necessary to change the wheels for normal ones, change the support wheel, properly fix the electronics and reclaim wires And after all the improvements and improvements this wonder-box will be able to drive around the yard scaring the cat and the drunk neighbor. And if you put the Chinese manipulator on 6 servahs, then you can paw objects remotely. ”
And this is from the most recent, the latest news:
Here is such a story turned out about my baby, I hope that the new owner will not abandon the robot, and he will live for a long time (both the owner and the robot). Otherwise, the fate of the platform to be buried under the apple tree to saturate the soil with iron. This, of course, is a definite benefit for the apple tree, but not the direct purpose of the created robot.
As for the name "NanoBot", then everything is quite simple. Probably many people remember a huge amount of advertising (by zombie box), in which there was such a popular prefix "nano", that I decided to add this prefix to the name of my robot, especially since it fully characterized its physical parameters.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/441414/
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