Raspberry Pi & Arch Linux - Day 16 - First Prototype

Here comes our first prototype!

To make the project portable, we need to first find a power supply for the electronic components. The one I used is RAVPower 22000mAh 5.8A Output 3-Port Portable Charger Power Bank External Battery Pack (2.4A Input, Triple iSmart 2.0 USB Ports, High-density Li-polymer Battery) For Smartphones and more- Black

This power bank is kind of heavy and it is very stable when we put it on the chassis.

After putting everything together, with the help of lots of tapes, the robot car looks like this:

It can move quite fast. I had concerns that the loading may be too heavy to carry but motor's performance beats my expectation and shows a lot of more potential. I think I can still add a few devices to the robot.

Here is the first drive

It is obviously a milestone of the project when all the components are on the chassis. However, some technical issues come to the surface immediately. One of the main issues is the position of the distance sensor. It turns out that there is no easy way to install the sensor to the center of the chassis. In this prototype, it is installed at the right corner of the robot.

Another problem is caused by the size of the power bank. This power bank is quite large and it cannot fully fit into the space. Even worse, it actually becomes an obstacle of the distance sensor and it limits the range of scanning area. As shown in the figure above, we have blind spot on the left side of the robot car. Therefore, the left side and the right side are not longer symmetric. This factor should be taken into account in the analytical algorithm development.

--END--