Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Weekend Projects – Joust-A-Bot”.
Hi, i’m nathan, with make in today’s weekend project which is by andrew terranova, we’re going to build a simple line following robot from the radio shack, make it kit, but then we’re going to adapt it a little bit so that we can have a robot jousting battle. Now, building one robot is fun, but it’s when you add another that things really start to get interesting, so grab a couple of kits: invite a friend over for a day of robot building and let the jousting begin. You’Ll need the following parts: to complete this build. Most of which you can pick up online or grab at your local radio, shack you’ll also need these basic tools, most of which you probably already have. In your workshop and put aside a solid day to complete this intermediate project, you can begin building the robot by following the instructions included in the make it robotic starter kit.
If this is your first time building a kit of this caliber be patient and follow the instructions step by step. The kit includes everything: you’ll need to build the basic line following bot. It even has a custom motor controller that connects to an arduino uno. All the uno, pins are broken out on headers, so they’re, easily accessible and, more importantly, hackable.
The basic line following robot works by using two optical sensors that use infrared or ir technology. When ir light from the transmitter reflects off a light, colored surface, it can be detected by the receiver. If the sensor is over a dark, colored, surface ir from the transmitter is absorbed and the receiver sees no reflection. This is how the robot navigates, based on the lines visible on the ground, once you’ve built the basic robot and have the basic line following code working properly.
It’S time to make some robotic weaponry, build the lance by cutting a length of wire and soldering. The ends to the leads of the momentary button use a dab of hot glue to secure the button at the end of the wooden dowel secure the wires to the dowel, with additional dabs of hot glue in several places along its length. Secure the button to the end of the dowel: to do this, you can use electrical tape or heat shrink tubing.
Next, you will need to wire up and mount a bump switch near the rear of the chassis so that when the lance of the opposing robot jaster hits the stately knight it triggers the switch. Thus signaling a hit. There’S a lot of hacking going on with this build be sure to head on over to the project page to get all the details, including the code and schematics.
Now. You’Ll need to mount the switches in place using leftover hardware from the kit mount the bump switch to a right angle bar secure it in place with a zip tie, mount a flat bar to that right. Angle bar and secure this switch assembly to the rear of the robot chassis, mount a small right angle, bracket to the front of the robot and attach another flat bar to this bracket. You can now add the lance using mini zip ties to attach it to the upright pieces of the bot. Next install the speaker in the rear of the chassis followed by the breadboard. Now it’s time to wire up the jousting circuit, which includes the speaker, lance and bump switch.
It’S fairly simple! Just follow the detailed instructions on the project page once all the wires are connected to the breadboard and to the robot’s control board. It’S time for the code head on over to the project page for more details on how the jousting code operates and how to properly compile and upload the code to your jostabot. The software contains modifications to the original line following sketch that turns the kit robot into a jousting pot. During competition, the losing joustabot will play a military style taps tune, while the winning jazzabot will play a battle victory tune with the software loaded up.
It’S time to decorate your knight using a standard, cardboard tube decorate it with the appearance of your jousting personality, draw your own imagine night or use our ready-made maki templates or modify images from the history books. The playing field is simply a few pieces of white foam board and two lines of electrical tape. The lines should be parallel and just far enough to let the robots sit between them with a little room to spare on either side of the ir sensors set. One robot jouster up on each end of the track, switch them on and let them charge at each other. Robotics is fun as a hobby and a constant challenge to your abilities. If you try this project and design your own improvements or modifications be sure to share your build with us over on the project page, we can’t wait to see what you come up with you .