Box Bot 2015, testing new products and materials

As the intro says I am trying new products and materials, the chassis is made from Balsa Wood, 5mm thick and he is about 100mm X 100mm X 100mm. I have used micro servos converted for continuous rotation, they are a bit of a fiddle to convert but work well once converted. The micro controller is a Arduino Nano clone running the same sketch as Tubby Bot that I made, the sketch is by Jayden Edwards of Pop Pet fame, and works very well for this style of robot. I have ordered on of the Pop Pet Advanced kits as well to give the support for a fellow robot fan that has made it his living and as a thank you for the sketch that he has made available for us to use, it is very cheap at $110.00 for all the components needed and sketches to run the robot, well worth the money.

                                   Box_Bot_2015, Made with Balsa Wood

I also made the wheels for this robot from wood, a hard wood that is and I put a rubber O ring into a grove that I machined into the wood and used some wood glue to hold it in place, works very well. The rear caster is a metal ball caster that was very cheap to say the least and the quality is a reflection of the price but it does work so long as the weight of the robot is over the front wheels more than over the caster, other than that they work well enough.

                                        The Home Made Front Wheel

                                          The Cheap Caster Wheel

I use some fine sand paper to take the shine off the rubber O ring to help with traction and I make sure that most the weight is over the front wheels and the robot works very well. I didn't use an external switch on this build as the battery box has a switch on it but I think I will go back to an external switch next build. I find the Arduino Nano a fantastic controller, it's size and ease of programming as well as memory is perfect for this style of robot, especially when used with servos as the drive motors.

                                      A bit of easy art work gives it life

If you want the sketch all you need to do is google Pop Pet the robot and Jayden has made all the info required available on his site, buy a robot from him if you want and easy build that will work perfectly once you put it together, anyway here is a small video of Box Bot in operation, cheers.