How to make a robot at home so that everything works out? You need to start simple and gradually complicate it! Instructions for creating robots with your own hands at home literally flooded the Internet. The author of the article will not remain aloof from this. In general, this process can be divided into three parts: theoretical, preparatory and actual assembly. Within the framework of the article, all of them will be considered, and the general scheme for developing a cleaner will be described.
Creating a robot at home
To develop from scratch, you need knowledge about current, voltage, and the functioning of various elements such as triggers, capacitors, resistors, transistors. You should also learn how to solder all this on circuits and use connecting wires. It is necessary to work out every aspect of movement and execution of actions, achieving maximum detail in actions to achieve your goal. And this knowledge is necessary if you are really interested in how to make a robot at home, and not just idle curiosity.
Preparatory processes
Before you start figuring out how to make a robot at home, you need to take good care of the conditions in which it will be assembled. First you need to prepare a workplace where the desired device will be created. It is necessary to place the structure itself and its constituent parts somewhere. You should also consider the issue of convenient placement of the soldering iron, rosin and solder. The workplace should be as optimized as possible so that it provides convenience when interacting with the structure.
Assembly
It is necessary to think over the “backbone” of the structure on which everything will be built. Usually one part is selected, and all the others are soldered to it. Speaking about the quality of soldering, it should be said that the places where it will be carried out must be cleaned. Also, depending on the thickness of the wires and legs used, it is necessary to select a sufficient amount of solder so that the elements do not fall off during operation. To simplify signal transmission processes and prevent the possibility of a short circuit, it can be etched. Then all the necessary elements are applied to it, the resulting structure is connected to a power source and, if necessary, the device is modified.
Simple robot
How to make something easy at home? And also useful? You need to keep your home clean, and it is advisable to automate this process. Of course, it is difficult to create a full-fledged cleaning robot, but a minimal design that will ensure the collection of dust from the floors of rooms is quite possible. To be honest, we will consider one that works in one place and at the same time removes small debris located in the dislocation zone. To create such a design, you must have the following materials:
- Plastic plate.
- Three small brushes that are used to clean shoes or floors.
- Two fans that can be taken from outdated computers.
- 9V battery and connector for it.
- A tie or clamps that can snap themselves into place.
- Bolts and nuts.
Drill holes for the brushes at equal distances. Attach them. It is desirable that all brushes be placed at an equal distance from the others and the center of the plate. Using bolts and nuts, an adjusting fastener should be attached to each of them, and they themselves are fixed with their help. The adjusting fastener sliders should be set to the middle position. We will use fans for movement. We connect them to the battery and place them in parallel so that they ensure the robot rotates in a circle. This design will be used as a vibration motor. Throw on the terminals and the structure is ready for use. If the robot moves to the side during the cleaning process, work with the adjustment fasteners. The design presented in the article does not require significant financial costs or skills and experience. When creating the robot, inexpensive materials were used, obtaining which is not a significant problem. If you want to complicate the design and make it move purposefully, you will need improvements in the form of additional motors and microcontrollers. Here's how to make a robot at home. Just think how much you can improve here! The widest field for design activities.
Even those who have just picked up a soldering iron can make the simplest robot.
Mostly our robot (depending on the design) will run towards the light or, on the contrary, run away from it, run forward in search of a ray of light, or back away like a mole.
For our future “artificial intelligence” we will need:
- Chip L293D
- Small electric motor M1 (can be pulled out of toy cars)
- Phototransistor and 200 ohm resistor.
- Wires, a battery and, of course, the platform itself where it will all be placed.
If you add a couple more bright LEDs to the design, you can easily achieve that the robot will simply run after your hand or even follow a light or dark line. Our creation will be a typical representative of BEAM class robots. The principle of behavior of such robots is based on “photoreception,” that is, light, in this case, will act as a source of information.
Our robot will move forward when a beam of light hits it. This behavior of the device is called “photokinesis” - a non-directional increase or decrease in mobility in response to changes in light levels.
Our device, as mentioned above, used an n-p-n structure phototransistor - PTR-1 as a photosensor. Here you can use not only a phototransistor, but also a photoresistor or photodiode, since the operating principle of all elements is the same.
The figure immediately shows the wiring diagram of the robot. If you are not yet quite familiar with technical symbols, then, based on this diagram, it will not be difficult to understand the principles of designation and connection of elements to each other.
GND. The wires connecting the various elements of the circuit to ground (the negative terminal of the power supply) are usually not fully shown on the diagrams. Instead, a small line is drawn to indicate the connection to the “ground.” Sometimes, next to the dash they write “GND” - from English. the words "ground" - earth.
Vcc. This designation indicates that through this part the circuit is connected to the power source - Positive pole! Sometimes on diagrams the current rating is often written instead of these letters. In this case +5V.
Operating principle of the robot.
When a light ray hits the phototransistor (indicated in the diagram as PRT1), a positive signal appears at the output of the INPUT1 microcircuit, which causes the M1 motor to work. And vice versa, when the light beam stops illuminating the phototransistor, the signal at the output of the INPUT1 microcircuit disappears, therefore, the motor stops.
Resistor R1 in this circuit is designed to compensate for the current passing through the phototransistor. The resistor value is 200 Ohms - of course, you can solder resistors with other values here, but you should remember that the sensitivity of the phototransistor, and therefore the performance of the robot itself, will depend on the value.
If the resistor value is large, then the robot will respond only to a very bright beam of light, and if it is small, then the sensitivity will be much higher.
In short, you should not use resistors with a resistance of less than 100 Ohms in this circuit, otherwise the phototransistor may simply overheat and fail.
Digital and analog multimeters Taking measurements Reading circuits: shielding, grounding Reading circuits: lamps and photocells Electric kettle repair DIY image projection clock
I decided to smoothly transition to dynamic moving models. This is a project for a small homemade IR-controlled robot, assembled from simple and readily available parts. It is based on two microcontrollers. Transmission from the remote control is provided PIC12F675, and the receiving part for the motor controller is implemented on PIC12F629.
Robot circuit on a microcontroller
Everything went smoothly with the digital part, the only problem was in the “propulsion system” - small gearboxes, which are very problematic to make at home, so I had to develop the idea " vibrobugs"The micromotors are controlled through amplifying transistor switches on the BC337. They are replaceable with any other small n-p-n transistors with a collector current of 0.5 A.
The dimensions turned out to be very small - in the photo there is a comparison of it with a coin and also near a matchbox. The robot's eyes are made of super-bright LEDs, tucked into a housing of small electrolytic capacitors.
Discuss the article SMALL HOMEMADE ROBOT
To create your own robot, you don’t have to graduate or read a ton. Just use the step-by-step instructions that robotics masters offer on their websites. On the Internet you can find a lot of useful information on the development of autonomous robotic systems.
10 Resources for the Aspiring Roboticist
The information on the site allows you to independently create a robot with complex behavior. Here you can find program examples, diagrams, reference materials, ready-made examples, articles and photographs.
There is a separate section on the site dedicated to beginners. The creators of the resource place considerable emphasis on microcontrollers, the development of universal boards for robotics, and soldering of microcircuits. Here you can also find source codes for programs and many articles with practical advice.
The website has a special course “Step by Step”, which describes in detail the process of creating the simplest BEAM robots, as well as automated systems based on AVR microcontrollers.
A site where aspiring robot creators can find all the necessary theoretical and practical information. A large number of useful topical articles are also posted here, news is updated and you can ask questions to experienced roboticists on the forum.
This resource is dedicated to a gradual immersion into the world of robot creation. It all starts with knowledge of Arduino, after which the novice developer is told about AVR microcontrollers and more modern ARM analogues. Detailed descriptions and diagrams explain very clearly how and what to do.
A site about how to make a BEAM robot with your own hands. There is a whole section dedicated to the basics, as well as logic diagrams, examples, etc.
This resource very clearly describes how to create a robot yourself, where to start, what you need to know, where to look for information and the necessary parts. The service also contains a section with a blog, forum and news.
A huge live forum dedicated to the creation of robots. Topics are open here for beginners, interesting projects and ideas are discussed, microcontrollers, ready-made modules, electronics and mechanics are described. And most importantly, you can ask any question about robotics and receive a detailed answer from professionals.
The amateur roboticist’s resource is primarily dedicated to his own project “Homemade Robot”. However, here you can find a lot of useful thematic articles, links to interesting sites, learn about the author’s achievements and discuss various design solutions.
The Arduino hardware platform is the most convenient for developing robotic systems. The information on the site allows you to quickly understand this environment, master the programming language and create several simple projects.
Many of us who have encountered computer technology have dreamed of assembling our own robot. For this device to perform some duties around the house, for example, bring beer. Everyone immediately sets about creating the most complex robot, but often quickly breaks down the results. We never brought our first robot, which was supposed to make a lot of chips, to fruition. Therefore, you need to start simple, gradually complicating your beast. Now we will tell you how you can create a simple robot with your own hands that will independently move around your apartment.
Concept
We set ourselves a simple task, to make a simple robot. Looking ahead, I will say that we, of course, got by not in fifteen minutes, but in a much longer period. But still, this can be done in one evening.
Typically, such crafts take years to complete. People spend several months running around stores in search of the gear they need. But we immediately realized that this was not our path! Therefore, we will use in the design such parts that can be easily found at hand, or uprooted from old equipment. As a last resort, buy for pennies in any radio store or market.
Another idea was to make our craft as cheap as possible. A similar robot costs from 800 to 1500 rubles in radio-electronic stores! Moreover, it is sold in the form of parts, but it still has to be assembled, and it is not a fact that after that it will also work. Manufacturers of such kits often forget to include some parts and that’s it – the robot is lost along with the money! Why do we need such happiness? Our robot should cost no more than 100-150 rubles in parts, including motors and batteries. At the same time, if you pick out the motors from an old children's car, then its price will generally be about 20-30 rubles! You feel the savings, and at the same time you get an excellent friend.
The next part was what our handsome man would do. We decided to make a robot that will search for light sources. If the light source turns, then our car will steer after it. This concept is called “a robot trying to live.” It will be possible to replace his batteries with solar cells and then he will look for light to drive.
Required parts and tools
What do we need to make our child? Since the concept is made from improvised means, we will need a circuit board, or even ordinary thick cardboard. You can use an awl to make holes in the cardboard to attach all the parts. We will use the assembly, because it was at hand, and you won’t find cardboard in my house during the day. This will be the chassis on which we will mount the rest of the robot’s harness, attach motors and sensors. As a driving force, we will use three or five-volt motors that can be pulled out of an old machine. We will make the wheels from caps from plastic bottles, for example from Coca-Cola.
Three-volt phototransistors or photodiodes are used as sensors. They can even be pulled out of an old optomechanical mouse. It contains infrared sensors (in our case they were black). There they are paired, that is, two photocells in one bottle. With a tester, nothing prevents you from finding out which leg is intended for what. Our control element will be domestic 816G transistors. We use three AA batteries soldered together as power sources. Or you can take a battery compartment from an old machine, as we did. Wiring will be required for installation. Twisted pair wires are ideal for these purposes; any self-respecting hacker should have plenty of them in his home. To secure all the parts, it is convenient to use hot-melt adhesive with a hot-melt gun. This wonderful invention melts quickly and sets just as quickly, which allows you to quickly work with it and install simple elements. The thing is ideal for such crafts and I have used it more than once in my articles. We also need a stiff wire; an ordinary paper clip will do just fine.
We mount the circuit
So, we took out all the parts and stacked them on our table. The soldering iron is already smoldering with rosin and you are rubbing your hands, eager to assemble it, well, then let’s get started. We take a piece of assembly and cut it to the size of the future robot. To cut PCB we use metal scissors. We made a square with a side of about 4-5 cm. The main thing is that our tiny circuit, batteries, two motors and fasteners for the front wheel fit on it. So that the board does not become shaggy and is even, you can process it with a file and also remove sharp edges. Our next step will be sealing the sensors. Phototransistors and photodiodes have a plus and a minus, in other words, an anode and a cathode. It is necessary to observe the polarity of their inclusion, which is easy to determine with the simplest tester. If you make a mistake, nothing will burn, but the robot will not move. The sensors are soldered into the corners of the circuit board on one side so that they look to the sides. They should not be soldered completely into the board, but leave about one and a half centimeters of leads so that they can be easily bent in any direction - we will need this later when setting up our robot. These will be our eyes, they should be on one side of our chassis, which in the future will be the front of the robot. It can be immediately noted that we are assembling two control circuits: one for controlling the right and the second left engines.
A little further from the front edge of the chassis, next to our sensors, we need to solder in transistors. For the convenience of soldering and assembling the further circuit, we soldered both transistors with their markings “facing” towards the right wheel. You should immediately note the location of the legs of the transistor. If you take the transistor in your hands and turn the metal substrate towards you, and the marking towards the forest (as in a fairy tale), and the legs are directed downwards, then from left to right the legs will be, respectively: base, collector and emitter. If you look at the diagram showing our transistor, the base will be a stick perpendicular to the thick segment in the circle, the emitter will be a stick with an arrow, the collector will be the same stick, only without the arrow. Everything seems clear here. Let's prepare the batteries and proceed to the actual assembly of the electrical circuit. Initially, we simply took three AA batteries and soldered them in series. You can immediately insert them into a special battery holder, which, as we have already said, is pulled out of an old children's car. Now we solder the wires to the batteries and determine two key points on our board where all the wires will converge. This will be a plus and a minus. We did it simply - we threaded a twisted pair into the edges of the board, soldered the ends to the transistors and photo sensors, made a twisted loop and soldered the batteries there. Perhaps not the best option, but it is the most convenient. Well, now we prepare the wires and begin assembling the electrics. We will go from the positive pole of the battery to the negative contact, throughout the entire electrical circuit. We take a piece of twisted pair and start walking - we solder the positive contact of both photo sensors to the plus of the batteries, and solder the emitters of the transistors in the same place. We solder the second leg of the photocell with a small piece of wire to the base of the transistor. We solder the remaining, last legs of the transyuk to the engines respectively. The second contact of the motors can be soldered to the battery through a switch.
But like true Jedi, we decided to turn on our robot by soldering and unsoldering the wire, since there was no switch of a suitable size in my bins.
Electrical debugging
That's it, we've assembled the electrical part, now let's start testing the circuit. We turn on our circuit and bring it to the lit table lamp. Take turns, turning first one or the other photocell. And let's see what happens. If our engines begin to rotate in turn at different speeds, depending on the lighting, then everything is in order. If not, then look for jambs in the assembly. Electronics is the science of contacts, which means that if something does not work, then there is no contact somewhere. An important point: the right photo sensor is responsible for the left wheel, and the left one, respectively, for the right one. Now, let’s figure out which way the right and left engines rotate. They should both spin forward. If this does not happen, then you need to change the polarity of turning on the motor, which is spinning in the wrong direction, simply by re-soldering the wires at the motor terminals the other way around. We once again evaluate the location of the motors on the chassis and check the direction of movement in the direction where our sensors are installed. If everything is in order, then we will move on. In any case, this can be fixed, even after everything is finally assembled.
Assembling the device
We've dealt with the tedious electrical part, now let's move on to the mechanics. We will make the wheels from caps from plastic bottles. To make the front wheel, take two covers and glue them together.
We glued it around the perimeter with the hollow part facing inward for greater stability of the wheel. Next, drill a hole in the first and second lids exactly in the center of the lid. For drilling and all sorts of household crafts, it is very convenient to use a Dremel - a sort of small drill with a lot of attachments, milling, cutting and many others. It is very convenient to use for drilling holes smaller than one millimeter, where a conventional drill cannot cope.
After we drill the covers, we insert a pre-bent paper clip into the hole.
We bend the paperclip into the shape of the letter “P”, where the wheel hangs on the top bar of our letter.
Now we fix this paper clip between the photo sensors, in front of our car. The clip is convenient because you can easily adjust the height of the front wheel, and we will deal with this adjustment later.
Let's move on to the driving wheels. We will also make them from lids. Similarly, we drill each wheel strictly in the center. It is best for the drill to be the size of the motor axle, and ideally a fraction of a millimeter smaller, so that the axle can be inserted there, but with difficulty. We put both wheels on the motor shaft, and so that they do not jump off, we secure them with hot glue.
It is important to do this not only so that the wheels do not fly off when moving, but also do not rotate at the fastening point.
The most important part is mounting the electric motors. We placed them at the very end of our chassis, on the opposite side of the circuit board from all the other electronics. We must remember that the controlled motor is placed opposite its control photosystem. This is done so that the robot can turn towards the light. On the right is the photosensor, on the left is the engine and vice versa. To begin with, we will intercept the engines with pieces of twisted pair, threaded through the holes in the installation and twisted from above.
We supply power and see where our engines are rotating. The motors will not rotate in a dark room; it is advisable to point them at a lamp. We check that all engines are working. We turn the robot and watch how the motors change their rotation speed depending on the lighting. Let's turn it with the right photo sensor, and the left engine should spin quickly, and the other one, on the contrary, will slow down. Finally, we check the direction of rotation of the wheels so that the robot moves forward. If everything works as we described, then you can carefully secure the sliders with hot glue.
We try to make sure that their wheels are on the same axle. That’s it – we fix the batteries on the top platform of the chassis and move on to setting up and playing with the robot.
Pitfalls and setup
The first pitfall in our craft was unexpected. When we assembled the entire circuit and technical part, all the engines responded perfectly to the light, and everything seemed to be going great. But when we put our robot on the floor, it didn’t work for us. It turned out that the power of the motors was simply not enough. I had to urgently tear apart the children's car in order to get more powerful engines from there. By the way, if you take motors from toys, you definitely can’t go wrong with their power, since they are designed to carry a lot of cars with batteries. Once we had the engines sorted out, we moved on to cosmetic tuning and drive. First we need to collect the beards of wires that are dragging along the floor and secure them to the chassis with hot glue.
If the robot is dragging its belly somewhere, then you can lift the front chassis by bending the fastening wire. The most important thing is photo sensors. It is best to bend them looking to the side at thirty degrees from the main course. Then it will pick up light sources and move towards them. The required bending angle will have to be selected experimentally. That's it, arm yourself with a table lamp, put the robot on the floor, turn it on and start checking and enjoying how your child clearly follows the light source and how cleverly he finds it.
Improvements
There is no limit to perfection and you can add endless functions to our robot. There were even thoughts of installing a controller, but then the cost and complexity of manufacturing would increase significantly, and this is not our method.
The first improvement is to make a robot that would travel along a given trajectory. Everything is simple here, you take a black stripe and print it on the printer, or similarly draw it with a black permanent marker on a sheet of whatman paper. The main thing is that the strip is slightly narrower than the width of the sealed photo sensors. We lower the photocells themselves so that they look at the floor. Next to each of our eyes we install a super-bright LED in series with a resistance of 470 Ohms. We solder the LED itself with resistance directly to the battery. The idea is simple, the light reflects perfectly from a white sheet of paper, hits our sensor and the robot drives straight. As soon as the beam hits the dark strip, almost no light reaches the photocell (black paper absorbs light perfectly), and therefore one motor begins to rotate more slowly. Another motor quickly turns the robot, leveling its course. As a result, the robot rolls along the black stripe, as if on rails. You can draw such a stripe on a white floor and send the robot to the kitchen to get beer from your computer.
The second idea is to complicate the circuit by adding two more transistors and two photosensors and make the robot look for light not only from the front, but also from all sides, and as soon as it finds it, it rushes towards it. Everything will just depend on which side the light source appears from: if in front, it will go forward, and if from behind, it will roll back. Even in this case, to simplify assembly, you can use the LM293D chip, but it costs about a hundred rubles. But with the help of it you can easily configure the differential activation of the direction of rotation of the wheels or, more simply, the direction of movement of the robot: forward and backward.
The last thing you can do is to completely remove the batteries that constantly run out and install a solar battery, which you can now buy at a mobile phone accessories store (or on dialextreme). To prevent the robot from completely losing its functionality in this mode if it accidentally enters the shade, you can connect a solar battery in parallel - an electrolytic capacitor with a very large capacity (thousands of microfarads). Since our voltage there does not exceed five volts, we can take a capacitor designed for 6.3 volts. With such a capacity and voltage it will be quite miniature. Converters can either be bought or uprooted from old power supplies.
We think you can come up with the rest of the possible variations yourself. If there is something interesting, be sure to write.
conclusions
So we have joined the greatest science, the engine of progress - cybernetics. In the seventies of the last century, it was very popular to design such robots. It should be noted that our creation uses the rudiments of analog computing technology, which died out with the advent of digital technologies. But as I showed in this article, all is not lost. I hope that we will not stop at constructing such a simple robot, but will come up with new and new designs, and you will surprise us with your interesting crafts. Good luck with the build!