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MACHINE BUILDING - DESIGN

Cristian, Asaph, Reggie

CONCEPT

It took us a bit to decide on exactly what we wanted to do, but early on the idea of an insect-like robot was pitched. This concept stuck, and we decided on doing something with six legs that could walk around on it's own. If we were able to make this work, then we would add a ToF sensor for it to be able to track objects close to it. At first we wanted to do an ant, but later on, while sketching a concept, I realized that some species of hemiptera (true bug) would be easier to balance the weight of a batter pack on because of their wider body.

The first thing we wanted to do in terms of mocking up a prototype would be making one leg. We did this with a design borrowed from a quadrapedal robot, and fitted it with 3 mg90s servos. We mocked it up on a breadboard using an esp32 and after some debugging of arduino code, we were able to get it to work with servo limits in mind.

PARTS NEEDED

The whole robot uses around 13 Amps
and when servos are stalled up to 38 Amps (this is only when every single servo is stressed)
MS18 Servos (x18)
Esp32
2S LiPo (7.4V)
UBEC (5A)
pca9685 servo driver
Distance sensor, VL53L1X (close range)
HC-SR04 Ultrasonic sensor (big walls)
MPU6050
RA1113112R handles 10A and 125V