The Start

It has been about a month since I’ve started this robot project, but it has mostly been boring setup and design stuff. However, there are some cool things I’ve made so far.

First up is the chassis. I finished it in mid-April. It is the same chassis used in the FIRST Robotics Competition kit bots, so I have some experience with these. However, I decided to upgrade them to use brushless motors instead of the brushed DC motors that they normally come with because I have more experience with those.

I’ve also been chipping away at the CAD for the past few weeks and I’ve finally gotten some decent progress. I am currently designing the arm, which has turned out to be quite complicated. I took a class for Autodesk Fusion, which is the CAD software I am using, about a year ago, but this is the first time I’m doing a large project in it. I think I get it though. So far I just have a turret platform and a two-jointed arm with a hex shaft running down the middle to operate the wrist. My next challenge is to make the hand.

I have taken heavy inspiration from my robotics team’s robot and have consulted some members of the Mechanical team. I do programming and electrical work on the robotics team, so they seem to be quite impressed that I was doing the mechanical stuff.

Finally, I’ve also been turning my garage into a mini robotics lab! I’ve acquired some tools and hardware to build this robot with. It’s not very clean yet, but I promise I am working on that.

The thing I’m most excited about in the workshop is the bandsaw. When building the chassis, I only had a hacksaw and hand saw. They work, but are incredibly slow and not nearly as accurate as a power tool. I got a bi-metal blade for cutting aluminum and did some test cuts and it seems to work great!