Silver Sumo - Revision II

After starting to mount the sensors on the front plate of Silver Sumo - Revision I I had a few ideas for improvements : 

• New battery pack, with better batteries
• Improved front scoop, secured to the base of the robot
• All sensors attached
• Piezo Speaker to enhance social interaction with humans
• Lots of blinky lights, also to enhance social interaction with humans
• Motors lowered a tiny bit to reduce Center of Gravity as much as possible
• Better o-rings to provide better traction

This is the battery pack that was created to replace the 4 AA's that was originally included in the kit. These batteries are rated at 4V a piece - @ 500mAhr. Two batteries were connected in series to give me 8V overall. These batteries worked for a while, but once I increased the demand on them with all the blinky lights, the current draw was too much for them, and they would be dead within10-20 minutes. I am currently searching for a battery pack that is more capable, but close in size.

You will also notice on the case that I formed out of 1mm aluminum, a clip on the left side of the picture. The tab on the right side of the picture slides on to the base of the robot, and the clip snaps on to the other side of the base. This made my life _SO_ much easier when it came to charging batteries, and getting the battery pack out of the way to work on the rest of the robot. I will continue this practice of making the batteries easily clip on and off of my new robots, whenever possible.

This is the portion of the front scoop that any opponent of mine should ever see. =) Slots were cut into the 1.5mm thick steel to create tabs that I bent back, and they would attach to the base of the robot. The sharp IR proximity sensor is clearly visible in this picture, as you can see it is _very_ close to the ground, to make sure that I can get even the lowest of sumo robots.

Here is the side view of the front scoop. You can clearly see the tabs that connect to the base of the robot. You can also see the outside left ground IR sensor.

Let me just take a second to mention that hot glue is great. It holds well enough to most everything you want to hold, but you can easily form it into any shape you want, and cut off any excess that you don't need. It is also great because if you need to remove parts without damaging them, you can by making precise incisions, and then gently pulling on the part once it is cut free.

Here is the back side of the front scoop. You can see all 4 ground IR sensors. I have since removed the two middle IR sensors to reduce current draw.

This is the base of the robot with the front scoop attached.  I have since added a piezo speaker to the top of the base, in the middle of the white nylon standoffs. (Sorry, no pictures of the piezo speaker yet)

This is the bottom of the base. You can see the stainless steel tubes that act as the axles for the wheels. These tubes have been threaded so that screws can hold the wheels on, then the screws are loctited (basically screw glue for those who don't know) onto the tubes. The tubes are hot glued onto the base, and the wheels spin on the screws (which are glued in place as well).

Here are all the parts laid out. 8 nylon screws hold most everything together for this robot. Then 2 screws for the front plate, and 1 screw for each wheel. Not a whole lot to take apart if you need to get at something fast.

Here is a fully assembled picture, with a RS232 connector attached.

Front view.

Side view.

Just a size comparrison in this picture (I guess).

This is the first Viton o-ring I broke. These o-rings are a whole lot better than the black ones I first had. But I need more (especially if I am going to be rough with them). =)