Role

Team Founder

Electronics & Software Leader

Chasis Design Leader

Robot restrictions

• There can be a maximum of 3 competitors per team;
• The robot must fit within the dimensions of 100×100 mm and weigh a maximum of 0.5 kg;
• The robot may increase its dimensions after the start, but must remain in one piece;
• The robot must wait 5 seconds after pressing the start button before it can start moving;
• The competition field is 77 cm in diameter and black in colour. The edge of the field 2.5 cm is white.
• The robot must drive autonomously. Remote control or any other form of control of the robot is prohibited.
• Sensors: Optical or ultrasonic (Professional level)
• Microcontrollers (No restriction)

This project started as an assignment for college, the main objective of the first prototype was to gain a sense of how microcontrollers worked, but we decided to take it to a higher level and built a much more advanced robot to compete in collegiate level competitions. 

Our First concept of the robot was focused primarily on cost reduction using low-cost electronic components.  The first problem that was found is that this components had bigger proportions compared to professional components, therefore a conventional setup for sensors and motors wasn´t possible, To address this issue, numerous iterations of the CAD design were carried out in SolidWorks in order to find the best possible configuration, using lateral thinking and design intent, without compromising functionality, reliability, structural reliability and cost reduction. 

Materials

-ABS

-Stainless Steel front Razor Blade

Electronic Components

-2 9V Motoreductor 230 RPM

-1 1500mAh lithium battery pack

-1 Arduino Nano

-3 Ultrasonic sensors

-2 Optic sensors

In order to produce the first CAD model in Solidworks we executed reverse engineering on every single component that the robot had to use in order to produce an accurate 3D model that actually helped us predict any undesired interference between parts or any possible failure when having all systems combined. This approach allowed us to reduce assembly errors and avoid printing chasis multiple times.

Issues identified

Chasis design

-As space was very well used there was very little space to work with in case any adjustment was needed or in case a failure ocurred, for example in motors and connections of electronics. Therefore, a chasis that could be easily dismaounted was needed.

Electronics 

-As we had a big amount of electronic parts a lot of connections were needed and cables interfered with other components causing disconnections or failures and it was hard to detect where a failure was located.

Programming

-Improved attack and defense adjustments were needed for the strategy of the robot for more possible scenarios during battle.

For the second iteration we learned from all of our previous mistakes and perfected overall design and battle strategies, out robot was ready to compete and win international battles, we named Baba Yaga our robot in honor to John Wick film, since our robot had 8 sensors in total making it extremely good for detecting opponents and react in a fast manner.

This amount of sensors also made the code more complex but we managed to create the right amount of attack strategies to fully take advantage of the sensor arrangement, we also added light indicators to each sensors to know the actual state of these without the need to connect the serial plotter and monitor signals and facilitate the iterative process to calibrate sensor´s parameters.   

In 2021, we registered for the international competition «Sumomania» in Morelos, Mexico. We fully complied with the tournament’s rules and restrictions and received financial support from Ph.D. Omar Abreo Rodriguez, a researcher and professor at UPQ, which allowed us to cover expenses related to competition. 

Despite it being our first competition, we achieved an outstanding 7th place out of 72 teams from around the world, including some of the best universities in Mexico. We returned home with the honor of representing our school and country.

Our next robot has professional components and it has a  lightweight machined aluminum chassis and the following improvements have been made: