Shaastra 2010 Manual Robotics Tutorial 1

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TUTORIAL - 1
1) Human Controlled Robotics (Manual Robotics)
Introduction
The word Robotics is getting redefined every moment. It is getting larger to encompass different fields
and is evolving every day. From where did this word come? It was coined by the famous Science Fiction
author Issac Asimov in his 1941 science fiction story Liar! This field has come a long way since then and
is now getting integrated with every possible field of engineering and science.
There would be very few on Earth who would not be intrigued or amazed by a robot. It is because of
these amazing inner features of this field that most of the people still dont have any idea about it.
Robotics is majorly divided into 2 categories:
2) Autonomous Robotics
Manual Robotics is the one in which the human controls the robot using a joystick or switches.
Whereas, in autonomous robotics, there is no human intervention while the robot performs a specific
task. It is coded and programmed to do a specific task only.
We have always got complaints that people want to build a simple robot, but they dont know where to
start. So, we thought why not take this initiative of providing tutorials for beginners? The beginning is
always the trickiest. Once you are through the first few levels, you get a knack of it and start liking it. So,
the key is keeping it really simple in the first few levels. Manual robotics doesnt have an upper limit to
it, because you can build more and more intricate mechanisms.
Here, in the tutorial, we would get you closer to the manual robotics domain so that you can fulfill one
of your long overdue wishes: Making a simple robot.

Cut out a piece of wood of around 25 cm by 25 cm using a hacksaw and keep it separate.
The First Robot
Now, in most of the websites, they write a lot of unnecessary stuff before actually coming to the main
point. We know it is irritating, so lets say that we will strike with a simple robotics problem itself. If you
are in college, your hostel room would mostly be dirty and would be covered with dust and bits of paper
and other things. It is too tedious to sweep the floor. So, how about making a small 1 foot * 1 foot robot
which would sweep the room?
First you would need to decide what kind of material who would be using for the platform/chassis of the
robot. It basically means the part on which you would be mounting motors and supporting the
mechanisms. You can use wood, aluminium, fibre glass for a small base.
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Then, comes mounting the motors. We would suggest that you use two 100 rpm motors with gearbox
for making this robot. Make sure that the rpm of both the motors is same. Below is an image of 100 rpm
motors.


The motors should be clamped to the base using U-Clamps or Saddle Clamps. The figure is shown below.


Attach the motors using the U clamps to the wooden base. Drill holes into the base and keep the motors
with the motor shaft on the outside of the base.
Then attach wheels to the motor shafts and make sure that you dont attach the wheel to the shaft
using adhesives like Fewi kwik. Attach it by using allen screws or any type of screw. It would be best if
you attach the motor shafts to the wheels using flanges. If you want to make a speedy robot, then a
wheel of a relatively large diameter should be used. This is because the motor gives a fixed rpm and to
increase the linear speed, we need to increase the diameter. Since v=*r, where = angular velocity
GEARBOX
MOTOR SHAFT
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(rpm) , v = linear velocity and r = radius. So, to increase v, we need to increase r because is constant
for a particular rpm motor. A figure of wheels is shown below and the next figure shows a description of
how the motor with the wheel and the saddle clamp would look.


Now, in most cases, we go for a differential drive mechanism for locomotion. A differential drive
mechanism basically means two motors with wheels at the back and a single caster in the front. Fix the
caster in the front at the middle of both the motors.

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The ball of the ball castor should be resting on the ground with the top fixed to the wooden base.A
simple chassis is now made with wheels attached to motor at the back and a ball castor in the front.
After the chassis of the robot is complete, we then make the mechanism which defines the robot.
Different views of the chassis are shown in the next page.

Fig: Bottom View

Fig: Top View

Fig: Side View
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Now, we need to make the mechanism on the basic chassis.
Here, the mechanism is a sweeping mechanism which would clean a fixed area. We just need to collect
all the dust at one place. So, a robot should have a sweeping mechanism. To make the sweeping
mechanism more efficient, we should maximize the area which the robot can sweep in order to
minimize the time required. There can be many mechanisms which one can think of but here we would
be proposing the mechanism which was built by us in our freshman year.
Since we have a dimension constraint of 30 cm, we have 5 cm left as we have already used 25 cm in
making the chassis. As it is stated that we can expand once the robot starts, we expand the sweeping
mechanism by a rotating movement.
Cut two pieces of wood of 10 cm by 3 cm and hinge them in the front at the edges. After this glue some
sponge to both wood pieces. This forms the sweeping part of the robot.
But, the sweeping parts should rotate at the respective hinges in the front. This would be ensured by
attaching small motors at the end. The motor shafts should be perpendicular to the sweeping
movement desired. Since these motors are really small, clamps of such size are generally not found. You
can attach these by double sided tape, but, it would always be better to clamp them to the chassis.
The kind of small electrical motors used is shown in the figure below.

Mount the battery in the middle of the chassis so that it does not get inclined towards one side.
You would need to make connections of the motor with the battery and then to switches which would
control the motor.





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Some diagrams of the final robot are shown below. The sweeping mechanism is shown closed.

Fig: Bottom View


Fig: View 2


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A snapshot of the robot is attached below.

Hence, the robot here has
1) A wooden chassis
2) Two 100 rpm motors
3) Saddle clamps
4) Wheels
5) Sweeping mechanism made of sponge and wood.
6) Small motors
Once you make all the connections to the control switches, you would need to know how to control the
robot. For that you must know how differential works.







This is a figure of the simple chassis of the robot with two motors and two wheels at the back. If you
stop rotate both the motors in the same direction, and then the robot will go straight. If you stop the
left motor and only rotate the right hand side motor, then the robot will turn left. If one stops the right
side motor and keeps rotating the left motor, the robot would turn left. Now, one would inquisitively
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ask what if I want to rotate one motor in forward direction and one motor in backward direction. In this
case, the robot would take a complete U turn i.e. it would rotate 360 about its own centre.
It is easiest to make a robot stand on 3 points, which are 2 rear motors and one castor at the front. But,
in consecutive tutorials, we would give more information about different locomotion of robot. We
would also give insight about making mechanisms using Pro-E diagrams. Different motors and motor
characteristics would be discussed at length.
1) Hacksaw
Tools Required
One thing to remember is to have the basic tools to work with; else it becomes infinitely painful
sometimes to even attach few pieces together. So, the bare minimum tools required are:
2) Electric Drill
3) Screw Drivers
4) Hammer
5) Spanner
6) Cutting Pliers
7) Round Nose Pliers
8) Files
We hope that you would now be able to make this simple robot and trust us, if you remain with us,
you would be able to build the toughest of robots in no time.