Posts

I have successfully transitioned the robot platform over to using the BrickPi in combination with LEGO Mindstorms EV3! 🎉 Actually, I did it quite some time ago and just haven’t got around to blogging about it. But it’s finished! The new design does not feature suspension, however, as that just proved too difficult to implement well. Besides, it wasn’t really necessary, since the chunky air-filled wheels provide reasonable cushioning anyway. I have also created tread and claw attachments that can be swapped in for the back, chunky wheels and front, still chunky rack-and-pinion steering system, allowing for greater maneuverability in Up the Garden Path1 and the ability to grab objects in Tidy Up the Toys2....

The Problem So, I’ve been driving my robot outside a bunch recently, doing laps round an empty cul-de-sac. And then, all of a sudden, I hear this crunching noise emitting from one of the motors on the robot. A bit of background: so far, I’ve been using a chassis from Jaycar Electronics that costs $64.95 (of the Australian kind). One of the reasons why I chose this chassis is that it comes with motors, which, in the end, results in more bang for your buck (or so I thought)....

I’ve been thinking. Dangerous, isn’t it? I’ve been thinking of redesigning. Every programmer knows that, a lot of the time, rewrites a mostly a waste of time. I’m not quite sure about this one, though. At the moment, the robot is a four-wheel-drive tank made out of a relatively cheap aluminium chassis. But, as I started thinking about tackling the Obstacle Course, I realised that its low-to-the-ground design is more of a hindrance than a help....

There are many solutions when it comes to remote controlling a Raspberry Pi robot. The approach which I have taken here is to use an Xbox-esque generic USB game controller, specifically the EasySMX ESM-9101. This controller does have to be put into its Android-compatible mode in order to work with the Pi, due to the default being a Windows-only, Xinput-based system with support for controller rumble. I will be using PiBorg’s fantastic gamepad library to interface with the controller....

print("Hello, World!") This is the blog for the 2021 Pi Wars at Home competition. This is where I, the sole Argonaut, will post various ramblings, explanations and tutorials surrounding the construction of Argo, my robot. Hope you enjoy it! The competition will take place on the 20-21st March next year with the videos being submitted by the 5th March. I will be telling my story through this blog....