Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
2 Antweight Battlebot Project
 Avik Vaish
Jeevan Navudu
Keegan Teal
 Jason Zhang design_document1.pdf
proposal1.pdf
proposal2.pdf
# Antweight Battlebot

Team Members:
- Keegan Teal (kteal2)
- Avik Vaish (avikv2)
- Jeevan Navudu (jnavudu2)

# Problem

In order to compete in Professor Gruev’s robot competition, there are many constraints that need to be met, including:
- Maximum weight (2lbs)
- Allowed materials (3D-printed thermoplastics)
- Locomotion system and fighting tool
- Wireless control via Bluetooth or Wifi

The main goal of this competition is to design a Battlebot that is capable of disrupting the functionality of the other Battlebots with our fighting tool while maintaining our own functionality.

# Solution

For the project, we plan to build a battlebot with a custom electronic speed controller (ESC) that can independently control three brushless motors: two for the drive system, and one for the fighting tool. This ESC will be controlled by an STM32 microcontroller, to which we will add a Bluetooth module to connect to it and specify how much power we want to send to each motor. To communicate with our robot, we will use a laptop that can connect to Bluetooth.

# Solution Components

## Vehicle Controller

The main subsystem of the robot will be a combined vehicle control board and ESC. This subsystem will contain an STM32 Microcontroller that will serve as the brain for the whole robot. With this MCU, we’ll be able to flash our whole software package that will be able to control the speed and direction of the robot, the robot’s weapon, and the Bluetooth communication.

## Power Module

This subsystem includes the battery, the voltage regulators/converters needed to power the electronics, and the necessary battery monitoring circuitry. Specifically, for the battery, we will use a 14.8V 4S2P LiPo pack to power all the components. There will also be a voltage short detection circuit for the battery that will shut down the robot in case of a short to ensure safe practices. This subsystem also contains a 5V linear regulator and 3.3V linear regulator to power the low voltage electronics.

## Drivetrain/Powertrain

This subsystem includes the motors and H-bridges needed to control both the wheels and weapon of the robot. The H-bridges will be made with regular N-MOSs that will be controlled by a PWM signal sent from the STM32 MCU. This H-bridge setup will be able to control the voltage and polarity sent to the motors, which will be able to control the speed of the wheels or weapon. This subsystem will also include the mechanical wheels of the robot and actual hardware of the weapon, which will be a spinning object. Since all the wheels and the weapon have the same mechanical motion, they can all use the same hardware and software electronically, with minor adjustments in motor selection and the actual mechanical hardware/peripheral.

## Bluetooth Module

One big requirement for this project is the ability for the robot to be controlled wirelessly via laptop. The STM32 MCU has bluetooth capabilities, and with additional peripheral hardware, the robot will be able to communicate over bluetooth with a laptop. The goal for the laptop is to be able to control the speed, direction, and weapon of the robot wirelessly and also have a display for live telemetry.

## Mechanical Design

The last part of our project would be the mechanical design of the robot chassis and weapon. For the chassis and weapon material, we decided to go with PLA+ as it offers a blend of being strong and robust but not being too brittle. The drive system will be a 2-wheeled tank style drive with one motor controlling each side of the robot. For the weapon, we are looking to utilize a fully 3D-printed drum that will have a 100% infill to maximize the rotational inertia which can lead to bigger impacts.

## Criterion for Success
We would consider our project a success if we are able to communicate with the robot from our computer as in sending throttle and steering commands to the robot, if those commands are then processed on the robots microprocessors and the motors are sent the according power needed to move and behave in the way that we want during a match.

## Alternatives
The most commonly used electronics in current antweight battlebots consist mostly of RC drone parts. We plan to create a very similar ESC to those on the market but it will have an integrated Bluetooth wireless capability as well as telemetry monitoring. We also want to focus on minimizing packaging size to lower weight and increase flexibility as much as possible.

Smart Frisbee

Ryan Moser, Blake Yerkes, James Younce

Smart Frisbee

Featured Project

The idea of this project would be to improve upon the 395 project ‘Smart Frisbee’ done by a group that included James Younce. The improvements would be to create a wristband with low power / short range RF capabilities that would be able to transmit a user ID to the frisbee, allowing the frisbee to know what player is holding it. Furthermore, the PCB from the 395 course would be used as a point of reference, but significantly redesigned in order to introduce the transceiver, a high accuracy GPS module, and any other parts that could be modified to decrease power consumption. The frisbee’s current sensors are a GPS module, and an MPU 6050, which houses an accelerometer and gyroscope.

The software of the system on the frisbee would be redesigned and optimized to record various statistics as well as improve gameplay tracking features for teams and individual players. These statistics could be player specific events such as the number of throws, number of catches, longest throw, fastest throw, most goals, etc.

The new hardware would improve the frisbee’s ability to properly moderate gameplay and improve “housekeeping”, such as ensuring that an interception by the other team in the end zone would not be counted as a score. Further improvements would be seen on the software side, as the frisbee in it’s current iteration will score as long as the frisbee was thrown over the endzone, and the only way to eliminate false goals is to press a button within a 10 second window after the goal.