How to Build a Robot at Home

Do you want to learn how to build your own robot? This is easy and quite cheap to do! The tutorial below will instruct
you on how to build a BeetleBot, which moves very similarly to a Roomba. This is a great introductory robotics project
for almost any age or experience level. This robot will move around, and turn around when it bumps into an object. It
works due to simple circuitry, with no distance sensors required.
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Steps
1.

Fit the heat-shrink tubing to the wheel on the original motor. Cut a piece of the tubing just a little longer than
each wheel. Fit it onto the wheel and shrink it using a lighter or the soldering iron. You may wish to put a few layers in
increasing diameters to really build up the (tires).
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2.

2
Glue the switches to the backside of the battery holder. The battery holder should be rated at 3v or 2*AA. These
switches are called SNAP ACTION Switches. Glue the switches to the back end of the battery holder, on the flat side
where wires are coming out. Place the switches at an angle in the corners: the contacts farthest from the lever-like
metal bar should touch the center line of the device.
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The levers, which are the switches themselves, should be at the outside, near the wires.

3
Place the metal strip. This metal strip will act as a motor holder. Make sure that the metal strip does not contact the
switch pins. Place the 1x3 (2.57.5cm) strip of aluminum just behind the switches. Center it, then bend the excess
down at a 45 angle. Glue the strip in place with hot glue. Let it set completely before moving on.

4
Attach the motors to the metal wings. Using hot glue, attach the motors to the bent-down sections of metal, such
that the tires are touching the ground. Pay attention to the charge markings on the motors, as the tires will need to
go in opposite directions. Make sure that one motor is placed upside down as compared to the other.
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Make sure that the motor pins dont contact the metal strip.

5
Form the back wheel. You will need a back wheel so that the robot doesnt drag. Take a large paperclip and form it
into the outline of a TARDIS or a house, with a medium-sized round bead at the peak. Place it at the opposite end
from the protruding wires and hot glue the ends of the clip to the sides of the battery holder.

6
Solder the robot. Use a soldering iron and solder to connect all of the electrical wires between the components of
the robot. This must be done carefully, as a wrong connection will stop the robot from working. There are several
connections you will have to make:
Solder the end pin on one switch to the end pin on the second switch. (The end pin is the pin

directly underneath the switch lever.)

Solder the center pin on one switch to the center pin on the second switch.

Solder a small piece of wire to one of the motor's "+" pin. Solder this wire to the adjacent switchs

o
remaining pin.

Solder a small piece of wire to the other motor's "-" pin. Solder this wire to the adjacent switch's

o
remaining pin.

Solder a long wire between the remaining connections on the motors (connecting the motors to

o
each other).
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Take the positive wire from the battery holder and solder it to the end pin of a switch.

Take the negative wire from the battery holder and solder it to the "-" pin of a motor.

7
Create the feelers for the robot. These feelers can be anything that act like the extension of the switchs arms. They
can be made out of paper clips. Bend them such that they form the shape of a bugs antenna.

8
Attach the feelers. Attach the feelers to the switches using the spade connectors and glue (if you need it they
should clip or slip on just fine.)

9
Turn it on by putting in batteries. The robot should move in much the same way a Roomba does. It just wont clean
your floor. Congratulations! You've made your robot. Make sure to teach your little guy the Three Laws of Robotics.
If you want to you can program a remote from a remote controlled car, so you can turn on your robot

o
at a distance.
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Video

Robot
Many people consider a robot as a machine that can run autonomous. However, if you broaden the definition of
"robot" slightly, remote controlled objects can be considered to be a robot. You may think that building a remote
controlled robot is tough, but in reality, it's simple if you know how. This article will explain how to build a remote
controlled robot.
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Steps
1.

1
Recognize what you will be building. You are not going to be able to build a full sized, two-legged, humanoid robot
that can do all your chores. Nor will you be building a robot with multiple claws that can reach out and pick up 100
pound weights. You will need to begin building a robot that will be able to go forward, backward, left, and right from
you controlling it wirelessly. However, after you get the basics down and have this simple robot built, you can usually
add and modify things on it. You should usually go by the principle that no robot is ever finished. It can always be
modified and made better.
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2.

Plan out your robot. Before building your robot, even before ordering parts. You need to design your robot. For your
first robot you should go with a simple design of just two servo motors on a flat piece of plastic. This design is really
simple and usually leaves extra room to add extra things after it's built. Plan to build something about 15 cm. by 20
cm. For a robot this simple, you should be able to just draw it out on paper using a ruler. Draw it the same size on
paper as it should be in real life, since the robot is so small. When you get into bigger, more complex robots, you
should start to learn how to use CAD or a program similar to it, such as Google Sketchup.

3.

3
Choose your parts. It's still not time to order parts. But you should choose them now and know where to buy them.
Try to order from as few sites as possible and you sometimes can save money on shipping. You will need a material
for the chassis, two "servo" motors, a battery, a transmitter, a transmitter and a receiver.

Choosing a servo motor: To move the robot you will need to use motors. One motor will power one
wheel and one for the other. This way you can use the simplest steering method, differential drive. This means to go
forward both motors spin forward, to go backwards both motors spin backwards, and to turn one motor goes and one
motor stays still. A servo motor is different than a basic DC motor because a servo motor is geared, can only turn 180
degrees, and can transmit data back on it's position. This project will be using servo motors because it's easier and
you don't have to buy an expensive "speed controller" or a separate gear box. After you understand how to build a
remote controlled robot, you may want to make another one (or modify the first one) to use DC motors, rather than
servo motors. There are four basic things you need to worry about when buying servo motors. These are speed,
torque, size/weight, and if they are 360 Modifiable. Since servo motors only turn 180 degrees, your robot would only
be able to go forward a little bit. If the motor is 360 degree modifiable, you can modify it to spin continuously. Make
sure the motor is 360 degree modifiable. Size/weight isn't very important in this project because you will probably
have plenty of room left over anyway. Try to get something average sized. Torque is the motors strength. These are
what the gears are used for. If there are no gears and the torque is low, it probably won't allow the robot to move
forward because it doesn't have the strength. You want a high torque, but the higher the torque, generally the lower
the speed. For this robot, try to get a good balance of speed and torque. You can always purchase and attach a more
powerful or faster servo after you finish building. It's recommended to get the Hitec HS-311 servo for the first RC
robot. This servo has a great balance of speed and torque, is inexpensive, and is a good size for this robot. The HiTec
HS-311 servo can be bought here.
Since the servo can normally only spin 180 degrees you have to modify it so it has

continuous rotation. Modifying a servo will void the warranty, but it has to be done.
Choose a battery You will need to get something to power your robot. Do not try to use AC

(i.e. plug it into the wall) power. You should use DC (i.e. batteries) power.
Choose a Battery Type. There are 3 main types of batteries that we will be choosing from.

These are Lithium Polymer (Lipo), NiMH, NiCad, and Alkaline.

Lipo batteries are the newest batteries that you can get and are extremely

lightweight. However, they are dangerous, expensive, and require a special charger. Only use this type of battery if
you have experience in robots and are willing to spend more money on your robot.
NiCad batteries are common rechargeable batteries. These are used in a lot of

robots. The biggest problem with these batteries is if you charge them when they aren't fully dead, they won't last for
as long on a full charge.

NiMH batteries are very similar to NiCad batteries in size, weight, and price but
have better overall performance and these are the batteries usually recommended for a beginner's project.

Alkaline batteries are the common batteries that aren't rechargeable. These
batteries are common (You probably have some), cheap, and easy to get. However, they die fast and you have to buy
them over and over again. Don't use these.

Choose battery specifications. You have to pick a voltage for your battery pack.
The most common in robots are 4.8V and 6.0V. Most servos will be fine running on either of those. It's usually
recommended going with the 6.0V (if your servos can handle it, which most can) because it will allow you to have
your servo motor go faster and have more power. Now you need to deal with the capacity of your robot's battery pack.
These are labeled as Mah. The higher you go the better, but the more expensive and usually heavier. For the size of
robot you are building, it's recommend about 1800 MaH. If you have to choose between a 1450 MaH battery or a
2000 MaH battery of the same voltage and weight go with the 2000 MaH. It will be more expensive by a few dollars,
but is an all around better battery to get. Be sure you get a charger to charge your battery pack with. A 6.0V 2000mah
NiMH battery pack can be bought here.

Choose a material for your robot. A robot needs a chassis to attach all the electronics to.
Most robots this size are made out of plastic or aluminum. For a beginner, it's recommended to use a type of plastic
called HDPE. This plastic is easy to work with and cheap. When deciding the thickness to get, get about 1/4" thick.
When deciding how big of a sheet to get, you should probably get a fairly big sheet in case you mess up on cutting.
It's usually recommended to get at least double the size of your robot. However, you probably should get more. A 1/4"
24"X24" piece of HDPE can be bought here.

Choose a transmitter/receiver. This is going to be the most expensive part of your robot. It
can also be considered the most important, because without it, the robot can't do anything. It's highly recommended
to buy a good transmitter/receiver to start off with, because it's the thing that will be the limit to how much you can put
on. A cheap transmitter/receiver will move your robot fine, but you won't be able to add anything to it. Also, the
transmitter can be used for other robots that you may build in the future. So instead of buying a cheap one now and a
more expensive one later, just buy the better one now. It will save you money in the long run. Anyway, there are a few
frequencies that you can use. The most common are 27Mhz, 72Mhz, 75Mhz, and 2.4Ghz. 27Mhz can be used for
aircraft or cars. It is most commonly used in cheap remote controlled toys. 27Mhz isn't recommended for anything
except small projects. 72Mhz can only be used for aircraft. Since 72Mhz is normally used in large model aircraft, it is
illegal to use in surface vehicles. If you do use 72Mhz, not only are you breaking the law, but you could interfere with a
large, expensive model airplane flying nearby. This could cause it to crash and could cost a lot of money to repair, or
even worse crash into a person and injure or even kill them. 75Mhz is made for only surface use, so you could use
this one. However, 2.4Ghz is the best. It has less interference than any of the other frequencies. It's highly
recommended spending the extra few dollars and getting a 2.4Ghz transmitter and receiver. After you decided upon
what frequency you are going to use, you need to decide how many "channels" you are going to get on the
transmitter/receiver. Channels are pretty much how many things you can control on your robot. For this robot you will
need at least two. One channel will let your robot go forward/backwards and one will allow it to go left/right. However,
it's recommended to get at least 3. This is because, after you built the robot, you may want to add another thing to it. If
you get 4, you usually have two joysticks. With a four channel transmitter/receiver, you may be able to eventually add
a claw. As said before, you should get the best transmitter/receiver your budget allows now, so you don't have to buy
a better one later. You can use your transmitter and even your receiver again on other robots you may build. The
Spectrum DX5e 5-Channel 2.4Ghz Radio System Mode 2 and AR500 can be bought together here.

Choose wheels. When choosing wheels, the three most important things you need to
worry about are diameter, traction, and if they will attach to your motors easily. Diameter is the length of the wheel
from one side, through the center point, to the other side. The greater the diameter of the wheel, the faster it goes and
the more it can climb, but the less torque it will have. If you have a smaller wheel, it may not be able to climb very
easy or go very fast but it will have more power. Traction is how well the wheels stick to the surface. Make sure that
you get wheels with a rubber or foam ring around them so that they don't just slide around. Most wheels that are
made to attach to servos, will be able to just screw right on to them, so you don't have to worry about that as much.
It's recommended to get a wheel somewhere between 3 and 5 inches in diameter with a rubber ring around them. You
will need 2 wheels. Precision disk wheels can be bought here.

4
Now that you have chosen your parts, go ahead and order them online. Try to order them from as few sites as
possible, because you may be able to save money on shipping that way if you order everything at the same time.

5
Measure and cut your chassis. Get out a ruler and a sharpie and measure out the length and width of your chassis
on the material you are using for your chassis. Consider about 15 cm by about 20 cm. Now, measure it again and
make sure your lines aren't crooked and are how long you want them to be. Remember, measure twice, cut once.
Now, you can cut. If you are using HDPE, you should be able to cut it the same ways as you would cut a piece of
wood that size.

6
Assemble the robot. Now that you have all your materials and you chassis cut, you just need to assemble it all
together. This can actually be the easiest step if you designed the robot well.
Mount the servo motors on the bottom of the piece of plastic near the front. They should

be sideways so that the shaft/horn (the part of the servo that moves) face the sides. Make sure there is enough room
to mount the wheels.

Attach the wheels to the servo using the screws that came with the servo.

Stick a piece of velcro onto the receiver and another on the battery pack.

Put two pieces of the opposite velcro onto the robot and stick your receiver and battery
pack to it.

You should now have a robot that has two wheels in the front and slopes down to the
back. There is not going to be a "third wheel" on this robot, instead the back will just slide along the floor.

7
Plug in the wires. Now that you have the robot assembled, you just need to plug everything into the receiver. Plug
the battery into where it says "battery" on the receiver. Make sure you plug it in the correct way. Now, plug the servos
into the first two channels on the receiver, where it says "channel 1" and "channel 2".

8
Charge it up. Unplug the battery from the receiver and plug it into the charger. Wait until the battery is finished
charging. This could take a full 24 hours, so be patient.

9
Play With It You should now be all done. Go ahead, press forward on the transmitter. Build an obstacle course for
it, play with your cat. Now that you are done playing with it. Add some stuff to it!.
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Tips
Try putting your old smartphone on it and using it as a video transmitter, if it has a camera. You can use it in

conjunction with Google Hangouts as a video chat link between the robot and your computer or other device to steer
your robot from outside of the room!
If you press right and the robot goes left, try switching the input that you plugged the servos into on the

receiver. i.e. If you plugged the right servo into channel 1 and the left into channel 2, switch them and plug the right
into channel 2 and the left into channel 1.
Add stuff. If you had an extra channel on your transmitter/receiver, you can add another servo motor to do

something extra. If you have one extra channel, try to make a claw that can close. If you have two extra channels, try
to make a claw that can open/close and move left and right. Use your imagination.

You may have to purchase an adapter that lets you plug the battery into the charger.

You might prefer using a 12VDC bike battery so it can have high torque and speed

Make sure that the transmitter and receiver you purchase are the same frequency. Also, make sure the
receiver has the same or more amount of channels as the transmitter. If there is more channels on the receiver than
the transmitter, only the lowest amount of channels will be usable.
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Warnings

Do not use the frequency 72mhz unless you are building an aircraft. If you do use it on a surface vehicle, not
only is it illegal, but you could injure or even kill someone.

Beginners should not try to use AC power (i.e. plugged into the electrical outlet) for any homemade project.
AC power is extremely dangerous.

Using a 12VDC battery can blow up the motor if the motor is not 12VDC

Using a 12VDC battery on a 110-240VAC motor makes it smoke up and it soon fails

Things You'll Need

Material for your Chassis: HDPE is about $20.00 for the size you should get, and you will have plenty extra.

Two Servo Motors: HiTec HS-311 servos are about $9.00 each.

A Receiver: The receiver of transmitter which is fitted inside the helicopter

A Battery: A 6.0V 2000mah NiMH battery is about $25.00.

A Battery Charger: A battery charger is about $20.00.

2 Wheels: Precision Disk Wheels 5 inches in diameter are about $7.00 each.

Sticky Velcro

How to Hack a Rumble Robot

Do you want to hack a Rumble Robot with an Arduino microcontroller? Your robot will have the ability to turn around
and head in another direction when it senses an obstacle. You can use the code provided, or write your own and see
how your roving rumblebot responds. If you're not used to tinkering with robots, it's an ambitious project, but it's well
worth the trouble to take it on.

Steps

1.

1
Put some batteries in the robot to see if it works. Typically, they take four AAbatteries.
On the back are some switches. There is "off/on" and also "A/B" to determine which team

the robot is on. Push the "on" switch. If the bot is working, it should say its name. Put the cover and the batteries off to
the side for now.

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2
Take the head off the robot. On the "neck" of the robot (between the head and body) there is a little screw that can
be taken off with a small phillips headscrewdriver. Put the screw aside. There is a small lip in the front of the head that
is a little tricky, but should come loose after a little light twisting and turning.

3
Disconnect the cable from the motherboard that connects the head to the body. Using a small screwdriver, pry
back the tabs keeping the board down, and pop the board out. You should now have just the naked board.
o

You should see the black micro processor that makes the bot move backward and forward. This is
what we'll be hacking and wiring into.

These are the pin outs on the board where you'll need to connect new wires. The main pins we're
concerned with are the four that operate the drive motors. They are connected to the "H-Bridge" that will allow us to
trigger the motors to rotate forward or reverse by applying a positive voltage to one of two wires for each motor. There
is one for forward and one for reverse on each motor. They are connected as follows:

Pin 1.0 Left motor FORWARD

Pin 1.1 Left motor REVERSE

Pin 1.2 Right motor FORWARD

Pin 1.3 Right motor REVERSE

4
Solder the wires that will go out to the Arduino. In this photo we see the ground wire which is connected to the pin
labeled in the photo on the white connector and the other four wires soldered in place.

5
Unscrew the upper body and pull it apart.

6
Wire everything together using this schematic. The video demonstrates how everything is put together. Make your
wires at least 5" in length to make it easier to mount everything up.
The schematic shown in this article assumes that there will be one sensor on the front of

the bot. The video below shows how you can make both the arms sense obstacles, but this will require an extra bump
switch (connected to Pin 3 and the ground wire) as described in the video section. The code will also need to be
changed accordingly.

If you mount everything on top of the chassis where the head used to be and mount the
bump switch on the front, use a micro switch and glue on some pieces of wire from a paper clip as whiskers. The
whiskers on the switch should extend left and right the same width as the robot. Add one more whisker pointing down
close to the floor. These will help the bot avoid anything that might not return an echo from the PING sensor. Make
sure the PING sensor points towards the front and is at 90 degrees to the floor. The LED connected to pin 13 blinks
each time the PING scans and it can mounted anywhere you like. The power switch is optional and simply goes in
line on the positive battery lead.

When connecting the motherboard to the microcontroller, you may need to make a notch

so that the wires don't get pinched when you put the robot back together.

The battery can be held in place by a small piece of velcro or some EPS foam.Solder the

negative lead of the 9-volt battery to the auxiliary battery input. Be sure to place the jumper onto "extension power"
not "USB."

If you want to be able to use the "on/off" switch, connect the white wire to the back of the

switch. The power should go to the switch, run back into the white wire, and feed the Arduino power when you turn it
on.

The PING sensor can go anywhere on the front of the robot. In this example, the sensor
has been glued into the faceplate of the robot. Cut out the "eye-holes" on the faceplate and then just add glue around
the "eyes" of the sensor to keep the plate sturdy. The ribbon cable that connected to the head of the robot has been

stripped down to three leads (instead of the original four) and soldered to the three leads on the PING sensor. The
other end connects to the Arduino as specified in the schematic.

7
Solder the leads and attach them to the Arduino board. Refer to the schematic once again for help.

8
Put the robot back together.

9
Upload the code. Connect the USB cable to your computer and plug the other end into the Arduino's USB port. Set
your robot on a riser so the wheels don't touch anything and power up the Arduino. Copy the code and paste it into a
new window in the Arduino software. Save the sketch as "rumblebot ping bump" and upload it. After it's uploaded,
power down the Arduino, disconnect the USB cable, set the bot on the floor and power up the Arduino. It should start
to drive forward with the LED blinking. As it gets within 30 centimeter (11.8 in) of an object, it should turn away and
keep driving forward. If it hits an object and triggers the bump switch, it should stop, reverse its direction and turn,
then proceed forward.

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Video

Things You'll Need

Find a Rumble Robot on ebay, at a yard sale or a thrift store.

Arduino micro controller

A Parallax PING sensor

An LED

A micro switch

A 100 ohm resistor

Arduino software which you can download here

You'll also need c