Actually - this should be titled the first 'successful' robot. We've had a couple of previous attempts but the motors weren't mounted very well, so it flopped about like a baby calf with legs akimbo - and as a result didn't move very well.
As soon as the idea for Pi Wars came up, I sent off for some cheap motors, wheels, a few L298 motor controllers and a battery pack. I also bought a terminal block breakout module for easy pin access to the Raspberry Pi pins. A couple of attempts with a robot shoe box, and a two motor lego robot proved we could build a simple robot and control it with a PS3 controller.
At this point we sent off the application.
We then wanted to build a 4 wheel drive robot to start testing the remote driving software properly and to allow us to prototype easily.
Sputnik 0.1 was born ...
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It's a little top heavy, but it's a start. The PS3 conrol worked pretty well from the start so we're very happy with that.
We also found we had to take the tyres off the rear wheels as they were too grippy when turning and the motors weren't powerful enough to overcome this.
We're very excited to have a working robot. Now we can plan what needs to be done for the months ahead.
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