Sunday, June 2, 2013

The Skeleton is Done

The mechanical elements (everything made of the LEGO Technic) is completed for Mr. Domino (pronounced Doe-mee-no). This means a domino can be ejected from the clip, as shown in Laying the First Domino, down a chute which holds the domino until the last linkage pushes it out the back of the robot. 

The 'front' of the bot is on the right with the first mechanism. It spits the dominos out to the left, they fall down to shaft whereupon the second mechanism, bottom left, pushes them out. Below is a video of the mechanism working at once - the two are geared together for two reasons: (1) is means only one motor is required to power everything and (2) it keeps the two mechanisms perfectly synchronized. 

The obvious next step is to add the Arduino, motors, and some sensors to the mechanical skeleton. The challenge in this will be in coupling the servo motors I bought with the LEGO Technic shafts. I hope to add some button-like sensors so that the robot knows when it is out of dominoes in the clip. 

Something I still have to determine is whether to drive the wheels independently or off the same shaft - whether or not it should need to turn. Building this robot will be ongoing, so regardless of which I choose I plan on eventually having it turning, swimming, and perhaps even flying. Below are some more angles, as the supported video quality above is relatively low.