MoonRabbit Robotics

Hello,

   just received new camera that hopefully will make the current camera system ( 3 cameras looking around robot ) obsolete… They forget to send me the adapter for lenses, but in worst case ( they wont send it to me ), i’ll just glue it… Bellow are images of the setup, and then picture using it. I didn’t measure it yet, but from simple testing, I can say it really sees around 170 degrees wide…

Hello,

   as I wrote in previous post, I was awaiting new set of tires as the old one were too small. It took some serious effort, but they fit and they fit tight. Perfect!

Hi,

   I already wrote here about how all the parts are ordered and I’m just waiting for them to arrive, and unfortunately it is still true. Only few parts I will not need for some time were in today’s mail – absolute encoders for the arm…

   I also reevaluated the visual system, and I decided to go other way than looking with webcam to convex mirror – I bought a webcam with removable lens, interface for 37 mm lenses and finally a 37mm ultra fish-eye lens with field of view 180 degrees wide. The plan is to have it on the top of the sensor tower, looking down on robot. Theoretically, I should see all I need and a little more, but we’ll see how it works in the end…

   In the process of looking for some laser proximity sensors, I found interesting item on e-bay. Some company is selling out used automotive gear, and besides lot of unusable stuff they also offer industrial grade lidar! I entered auction for two of them, hoping that one could be mine…

Hello,

   early days of the year are as always very slow. Gearboxes will be around around 19. of January, miter gears for counterbalancing system will be in the end of January, the water beam cutting company have holidays to 8. of January… so I bought a can of spray paint and turn silver aluminium wheel skeleton to matte black. Everything went better than expected – see the results.

Hello,

   it’s Monday, 2. January 2012. I came back from Christmas and I’m recharged back to 100%. Today I went a little shopping, I bought one of those hobby multi-tool that can drill, cut and rub. Using it I was able to put together wheel prototype. Tires I ordered for it are a little too short, there is some more figuring out.

Wheel prototype

Hello,

   this week was full of googling, buying and negotiating. Some of the e-shops I was counting on refused to send me parts so I had rough time to find substitutes. Now I can tell that all of this problems are behind me and I can focus on other things.

   I also modified steering system a little, the final design is on the image bellow. In forthcoming week I expect the first prototype of wheel to be out of cutter, so I’l post the first real custom made part of this new version of robot. Stay tuned.

Hi,

   I did a simple test with my new motor – LRP Truckpuller 3, and it seems I made a good choice. Not only these motors looks great ( in opposite to silver cans ), they have really quality feeling ( German manufacturer ) and last but not least they have high torque and really small power consumption. On free spin it is 300 mA, when I put shaft under pressure it jumped to 450 mA – with planned 12Ah battery it should work whole day…

Hello,

  I finished first sketch of gripper that should be strong enough to pick up bag of gold. It will be combination of 2mm aluminium and 10mm thick ABS or nylon plastic. I still don’t have it drown down to single parts, but that should be straightforward process.