The robot uses a pen to draw as it moves. The wheels control the position and the servo can lift the pen up/down when no drawing should occur.This is my fist take on this robot. I'll let the students have a stab at the code and put that on GitHub once we have something sensible to move it around with. The hardware was dictated by what the students already have in their kits, but this is probably one of the cheapest robot platforms out there.Regarding precision - it's not crazy good, but more than good enough for my purposes. See this video for an idea of what to expect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44s1E3_TrTg The better the pen fits, the more repeatable the drawings will be.
Technical
1 x Filament for platform & wheels $3
2 x Steppers( 28byj-48) $4
1 x Servo (SG90) $1.5
3 x rubber bands $0.2
10 x M3 10mm screws $0.3
1 x 9V battery $1
Total cost $10 (excluding the Arduino controller and a pen)
<p>I made some small changes to the design: </p><p>- Removed the servo, because the pen doesn't need to move up and down. </p><p>- Added a 9V battery-pack to the bottom of the bot</p><p>- Moved the stepper motor controllers to the top of the bot</p><p>- Changed the dimensions of the wheels slightly</p><p>- Added a nut and bolt hole to the wheels in order to screw the wheel in place</p><p>- Added a M3 nut fitting to the stepper-motor bracket</p><p>I made the changes in Tinkercad, which is available here: <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.tinkercad.com/things/kqUnFAkJods-penbot-redux-adapted-from-httpswwwyoumaginecomdesignsnith">https://www.tinkercad.com/things/kqUnFAkJods-penbot-redux-adapted-from-httpswwwyoumaginecomdesignsni...</a></p>
jensa
over 11 years
Hehe. Yeah. The UM is printing in the background and has been so for a couple days. I need to make quite a few platforms for my lecture...<br><br>From the looks of it, the R2D2 will need a simpler control system than the one required for this bot actually. The R2D2 can move without any special calculation. I assume the problem there is how to bring the motion down into the "feet" of the robot.<br><br>Drawing something other than funny patterns with this bot will require Matrix math to calculate the offset of the pen. I haven't gotten quite there yet, but I'll work on it and publish stuff when it's ready. Maybe one of my students will beat me to it?
UltiErik
over 11 years
Very cool! Another featured design!
B.t.w. at first I thought that the drawing robot made the same sounds as the Ultimaker, but in fact, it was an Ultimaker in the background ;)
Maybe this is already a nice substrate for the electronics architecture for the moving R2D2 by Somerwil:
https://www.youmagine.com/design_ideas/mobile-r2-d2