Hardware

Phase 3:

Phase three was our attempt to add user control and some degree of maneuverability to the robot. To do this, we took the chassis from phase two and modified it in order to create basic steering, which functions using a servo motor. Moreover, we also added a remote control, which communicates with the driver using XBee radio. The remote controller also uses two dual-axis potentiometers, and is powered with an Arduino Nano.

To increase the speed of our fans, we also modified our power supply so our robot ran off a single 11.1 V lithium polymer (Li-Po) battery.

Phase 2:

Phase two was an attempt to create a basic four-wheeled chassis with free spinning wheels. We attached all of the components from phase 1 onto this chassis, except we changed the power supply to 12 V (8 1.5 V batteries in series). We also experimented with switching the number of fans on the robot (either one or two) in order to optimize performance.

Phase 1:

The initial phase of the robot was our first attempt to get a robot to stick to a wall. We attached an Adruino Uno, two  unidirectional brushless motors, and two electronic servo controllers to  a quadcopter chassis. Each brushless motor had a fan attached onto it, and the whole system ran off of a single 9 V battery.

Our tests failed at getting the robot to stick to a wall; as a result, we decided to focus on first building a propeller-driven chassis to function on flat ground before thinking about sticking a robot to the wall