Today, we upgraded our little mini quad rotor flying drone that we call “The Black Hornet.”
We replaced his main board, installed new propellers, re-fixtured his motor mounts, and got him in good flying shape. He flew steady and strong in our test flights.
Genevieve soldering the main circuit board for the Black Hornet
Genevieve connecting electronics on the Black Hornet mini quad rotor
Genevieve finalizing the upgrades on the Black Hornet mini drone
We would like to introduce Mechatron, our mechatronic tank. When we designed and built Mechatron we wanted him to be tough looking, industrial, and retro-futuristic, with lots of metal, rivets, and gears. He’s built entirely out of aluminum, brass, and steel, but inside, he’s chock-full of high tech electronics. See pictures and more text below. And be sure to watch the video to see Mechatron in action!
Mechatron includes special wheels with rollers slanted at 45 degree angles and driven by dedicated gearboxes, four powerful motors, and a software-controlled drive system that we wrote that operates each of the wheels independently. The result is that he can move in any direction at any time in any orientation. In other words, he can drive forward and backwards or turn like a normal vehicle, but he can also drive perpendicular to the direction he’s facing or at any desired angle. Weighing in at forty five pounds, he is by far our heaviest robot, but he is also our most agile, which makes him tremendous fun to drive.
Mechatron’s gun turret pans 360 degrees, includes 8 range-finding sonars for target detection, a laser, and a high-powered electric automatic weapon that shoots brass or plastic pellets. Ammunition is fed from the base of the robot up through one of the articulated metal tubes attached to the turret (the other tube contains wires). He can fire extremely rapidly while standing still or moving.
Strips of 52 programmable RGB LED lights have been mounted on Mechatron’s underside and within his turret. The turret LEDs indicate the robot’s current mode and whether the weapon system is armed. The LEDs on the underside change color depending on the direction of each of the individual wheels (Blue = Stopped. Green = Forward. Red = Backward), which helps to illuminate how Mechatron’s unique drive system works.
Mechatron is designed to function in a variety of different modes, including both user-controlled Radio Control and/or fully-autonomous. For the RC mode, we built our own controller which matches Mechatron in look-and-feel. The left joystick controls the pan and tilt of the gun turret and includes the firing button on top (which is armed using the missile switch). The right joystick controls the drive system. Forward and Backward motion (Y-axis) moves the robot forward or backward. Twisting the joystick turns the robot in the direction of twist (Z-axis). Moving the joystick left or right (X-axis) causes the robot to strafe left or right while maintaining his current orientation. Combined X-Y-Z joystick motions create unique and agile movements, such as strafing in circles. The robot can move in any direction, while panning and tilting its turret and firing all at the same time.
Technical Specifics:
Overall Design: Beatty Robotics
Arduino Software: Beatty Robotics
Metal armor plates: Beatty Robotics
Main Microcontroller: Arduino Mega 2560
Microcontroller used for controlling LED lights: Arduino Nano
Light Controller Software: Beatty Robotics
Wheels: AndyMark (special thanks to Andy Baker, who was great to work with on these)
Drive Gears: Modulox (special thanks to Dan Richardson at iR3 Creative Engineering & Andy Baker at AndyMark)
Pan-Tilt gears and other parts: RobotZone (special thanks to ServoCity)
Pan-Tilt Servos: Hitec Digital
Sonars: (12) Maxbotix MaxSonar Ultrasonic Sensors
Turret Sensor Head: Beatty Robotics
RGB LED strips: Adafruit (Go Blinky Belt!)
MP3 Sound Board: Sparkfun MP3 Trigger
Servo Controller: Pololu Maestro
Voltage Regulators: Pololu & Dimension Engineering
High-amp Relays: DFRobot
Motor Controllers: (2) Dimension Engineering Sabertooth 2×25
Motors: (4) CIM
Wireless Communication: Xbee Radio with Sparkfun Xbee Explorer Regulated board
Joy Sticks: (2) 3-axis hall-effect joysticks from CH Products
Batteries: (1) 12v 3-cell Lithium-Polymer 20C
Aluminum, hardware, fasteners, wire, tools, and much else: McMaster-Carr
Wire, electronic components, IC boards, and much else: Sparkfun & RobotShop
Security V is a small security robot. It’s equipped with the following capabilities:
Automatic electric gun (Airsoft pellet gun) with ammunition cage
Pan-Tilt Gun Turret
Targeting laser
FPV Camera
(3) Ping sensors for object avoidance
LED Light Strips
MP3 Sound Player
IR Human Detection Sensor
Moto Controller
Two motors
Two treaded drive wheels and two omni wheels
Arduino Mega Microcontroller
Xbee Radio for remote control
Button panel for selecting the mode
We programmed it with five different modes:
1. Roams autonomously around the house, playing R2-D2 like sounds as it explores & avoids obstacles 2. Remote Control 3. Dance Mode (Plays the song Mr. Roboto and dances around) 4. Guard Mode (enables its infrared human detection sensor and plays a police siren if anyone tries to sneak past it) 5. Shoot (shoots the gun)
When we were ordering some parts for our Mechatron robot and we discovered a cool strip of LED lights that worked based on “RGB,” which stands for Red-Green-Blue. These are special LED lights that you can program to whatever color you want by combining red, green, and blue together. I looked at my sister and asked if she was interested in making a “Blinky Belt” that we could wear and would light up in various patterns. “Yes!” she said. When the parts arrived, we started building immediately. We cut wires, soldered, and heatshrank. I learned how to tin wires for the first time. Then we soldered the strip of little lights to a tiny Arduino microcontrolller. Then we connected it to a belt buckle and a little pouch to hold the battery and electronics. After we were done with the building phase, we worked on programming it. We were able to program each little light separately so we could make any pattern we wanted, including violet, green, and other colors. Because it was the 4th of July, we made a wild red, white, and blue dancing pattern. It was fun to hold sparklers with a glowing Blinky Belt!
We’ll post a video soon, but for now, here’s a pic.