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Clone of stEve

A simple laser cut acrylic robot designed for a workshop entitled "Arduino with Motors".

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Based on an earlier robot design, stEve, which was built from balsa wood and designed to fit within a metal sweets tin (helpfully in the shape of a robot). Clone of stEve was designed to be easily assembled, of a size and shape to suit a simple shell (Pringles can) and most importantly cheap. The workshop, Arduino with Motors, gives a brief introduction to the different types of motors and discusses how they can be interfaced with an Arduino. This robot steps in as a way to put the theory into practice and each of the participants programmed their clone to drive the stepper motors as fast as possible (without stalling, the motors are not blessed with an abundance of torque) and set up to head towards the brightest light. They then raced their robots down a corridor towards a desk lamp.

Built from laser cut acrylic with integral clips wherever possible to save on mechanical fixings. Stepper motors are 28BYJ-48 5v geared 64:1 and supplied with a ULN2008 driver board.

Laser cutter file (see github link opposite). Colours are: Red - etch, Green - first cut, Blue - second cut, Cyan - CAD notes. Also a file which contains the previous revisions (on github), good and bad, which might offer some insight into my design process.

Workshop under way and the clones are preparing for their race.

It was a gripping race, watching the robots lumber slowly along the hall there was one clear winner (we couldn't contain ourselves and declared the winner before it reached the lamp).

  • 2 × 28BYJ-48 5V Stepper Motor
  • 1 × Arduino UNO
  • 2 × AA x 3 Battery Holder
  • 1 × Small Solderless Breadboard
  • 2 × Light Dependant Resistor The robot's eyes.

View all 6 components

  • 1
    Step 1

    Electrical assembly

    - Desolder the connectors on the ULM2008 boards (too tall for fitting into body).

    - Solder wires in their place, crimp dupont male ends (or simply tin the ends with a soldering iron and tidy so they will fit securely into a breadboard).

    - Front/robot-right motor driver goes to pins 4-7, Rear/robot-left motor driver goes to pins 8-11.

    - Wire the positive tab of a battery pack to the negative tab on the second battery pack.

    - Wire (red) the positive tab of the second battery pack to a switch and then wire the switch to a dupont male end to be put into Vin on the Arduino.

    - Wire (black) the negative tab of the first battery pack to a dupont male end to be put into GND on the Arduino.

  • 2
    Step 2

    Mechanical assembly

    - Stepper motors into parts A1 & A2

    - Ends B1 & B2 slot into A1 & A2 to make a rectangle (B2 has no tabs, it goes in at the hook ends of A1 & A2)

  • 3
    Step 3

    - A1,A2,B1,B2 assembly snaps into base C (line it up and pull the two spring clips back if necessary)

    - Tape a nut into slots on B1 & B2 (tape on one side should be enough to stop the nut falling out)

View all 7 instructions

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