Mechatronics, Mechanical Engineering

BATMEN AND ROBYN: THE BOTMOBILE

The BotMobile was a project in ME210, Stanford's graduate introduction to mechatronics course. Our mission was to design and build a robot that could score a point. We built fast, failed faster, and had many inopportune incidences along the way. With a complete design change in the final hour, we passed the class in the very last minute. Professor Kenny claimed it was one of the most exciting check-off he's ever seen.

This course was easily one of my favorites. I had an amazing team that got along very well and kept going despite all the obstacles we ran into.

For this course, my focus was primarily on the logic. I designed the state block diagrams and wrote the code for initial tape finding and following.

The bot could be placed by the referee at the start of the game anywhere in Bumper Initiation Zone (BIZ). My logic had to take into this account and be able orient the bot once it started.

I was able to write the procedure for following tape that theoretically worked. However, the mechanical design of our bot made things difficult. It was too heavy! The inertia caused by excess weight would cause the bot to continue moving forward even though the motors were stopped. Once stopped, the torque required to begin moving the bot was incredibly large so once the bot got going, it would shoot off.

Because of the weight, we had to completely change our game plan and redesign the entire scoring system of the bot. Please see out website for the full story!