Review of ready-made frames for creating robots on Arduino

10.03.2012, 15:10
Source: timerobots.ru, roboclub.ru

Make your first robot with your own hands, having necessary materials not that difficult. In this article we will talk about how to make a spider robot from available materials. The spider robot will not have motors; it will be static and motionless. You can move it only with your hands. But if you want, you can independently think about how to make the robot move.

To create a spider robot from improvised materials, you will need resistors and capacitors for the legs, a chip for the body, a suitable part for the abdomen, you can use an inductor from an old disk drive, diodes for the eyes, and a soldering iron.

First, using a piece of wire, you need to connect the chip and the part intended for the abdomen (inductor). The wire must be carefully soldered to the belly part and the chip. Let the wire be long, so that the ends protrude beyond the chip, which will serve as the jaws of the spider. At the end, the wire can be shortened so that it looks like jaws. Next you need to make spider legs, which will serve as resistors. A loop is made at one end of the resistor, the excess part is cut off. You need to make 8 legs out of resistors, but more can be done if desired.

We string the made legs onto the pins of the chip and solder them in the desired position. For clarity, see the photo.

Then, you need to cut the resistor wires and make hooks as shown in the photo. This is needed to create the next leg segments.

Taking other resistors, a loop is again made at one of the ends and strung onto the hook of the already soldered resistors. Solder again in the desired position.

House spider Spike

I present to you my pet spider. His name is Spike. Made by me from scratch about a year ago.

The basis of the design is aluminum profiles. Apart from them, almost nothing is actually used. Also from the mechanics there are a pair of springs from car brake pads and 16 identical gears. They had to be ordered from www.conrad.de it cost about 300 rubles and in conversion it turned out to be 10 rubles per gear. They were transporting it for about a month. The mechanics are shown in the picture below. The chassis is assembled with only 2 motors and is controlled similarly to a caterpillar one. The characteristics turned out to be quite good: thrust up to 4 kg, load capacity up to 20 kg. The speed was not the fastest: 0.3 m/s. But this is due to slow engines. By the way, their consumption is quite modest: 0.5A at full speed with an additional weight of 5 kg.

Now about the electronics: The robot is driven by an ATMEGA8535 controller. Relays are currently used to control motors. But their reaction speed is quite enough. Sensors include a whisker and a Sharp distance meter. The latter is mounted on the rotor of the stepper motor and can look to the sides.

Actually, that’s where everything stopped for now. I am currently working on another robot, it is not so large and complex from a mechanical point of view, but it is easier to test new algorithms on it. As soon as I come up with a name for him, I’ll also tell you about him here.

Hi all!

A year ago I became interested in arduino microcontrollers and building a four-legged spider robot using Arduino Uno R3. Interest arose after reading various articles and watching videos on YouTube. Most impressive were the robots "PhantomX hexapod" and the ant "A-pod", which were redesigned by a guy under the nickname Zenta (Kore Halvorsen). His first robot was created on Dynamixel AX-18 servos from the Robotis company, and the second on Hitec servos. These servos are some of the most expensive. It will be beyond my strength to create the test model that I planned on the basis of these machines. As servos, the choice fell on "Tunigy TGY-S9010" (13 kg), I ordered the dfrobot i/o expansio v 5.0 shield, in the future a bluetooth xbee module, a 7.4v 5100mah battery, and an SBEC with 20A current when walking will be installed will most likely exceed 12A, so I ordered with a reserve. After looking at a lot of pictures and photos, I decided to create a robot of my own design. Made sketches. I transferred these drawings into drawings, did something in a compass, or something in SolidWorks.

Blueprints -

After completing the drawings, I created an approximate 3D model. The animation turned out to be clumsy and I won’t post the video.

I ordered all the spare parts for the robot on ParkFlyer. The first part of the parts arrived within 1.5 months, and the next 2 parcels arrived within 7-8 months. The delay in delivery was due to a malfunction in hobbyking and Russian customs. In the corner on the left in the photo is the preliminary assembly of the robot.

List of robot parts:

While I was waiting for a parcel from the Middle Kingdom, I started looking for where I could do laser cutting. I chose 4 mm plexiglass for the body and connection of the legs, and 8 mm acrylic sheet for the legs, since the support area will be larger. The company calculated all the details and announced a huge amount. I found another one and ordered the parts on a milling machine. After milling, all parts were processed and polished by hand.

Gradually I completed the parts and assembled the robot. Imbus bolts M3, cap nuts are all stainless steel. The photo shows preparations for assembling the connection between the body servo and the hip.

This is what it looks like in assembled form -

Full spider leg. Bolts and mounting bolts m2

The body, thigh and paw joints are strengthened. All tubes from TV antenna. The controller is mounted on nylon stands and secured with nylon screws. A battery below sbec 20A will be installed under the controller. Everything turned out compact and accessible. Height from floor to bottom 4 cm.

I planned the weight to be up to 1.5 kg, but it turned out with a 1.6 kg battery. The photo below shows the weight without battery.

General form. During assembly, two shortcomings emerged - 1. the legs slide, 2. the connections under the housing servo are bent. There is a solution to the second drawback. On the other side of the servo, I will mill plexiglass strips on the machine and attach them to the screws through a tube. The first question is to either put rubber on the screws or fill the ends with liquid rubber.

More photos -

View from above -

After the final assembly, I master the programming language. There are a lot of different things on the sites ready-made templates and written programs. I’m not a programmer and I can do basic movements, for example: move a paw or move the entire leg at a certain angle, but I don’t understand how to describe the cycle of movement in one direction or another. Moreover, make control via Bluetooth from a computer.
Above program code I'm working now.

List of links to articles and instructions necessary for assembling and configuring the six-legged spider robot Hexapod RKP-RCS-2013B-KIT

This image (see Fig. 1) shows an example of an assembled six-legged spider robot with the additional equipment in the form of a Bluetooth module for wireless external control.

Kit for assembling the chassis of a six-legged spider robot RKP-RCS-2013B-KIT is a mobile platform for a six-legged robot with increased cross-country ability and maneuverability. The chassis is designed and intended for robotics projects, construction training various systems mechatronics and programming, as well as for a variety of design hobbies. Mobile platform six-legged spider robot (RKP-RCS-2013B-KIT) includes a platform intended for installation various sensors and sensors, as well as robot control boards and power systems.
Hexapod RKP-RCS-2013B-KIT is a kit in the form of a constructor for self-assembly of an arachnid-like six-legged robot. All parts of the supporting frame of the body and the six limbs of the spider robot are made of durable and lightweight aluminum. The chassis design parts of the six-legged spider robot (Hexapod) already have all the structural elements drilled and milled.

The kit for self-assembly of the Hexapod includes all the necessary components for assembling the mechanical part of the spider robot itself: bushings, screws, fasteners, a switch block, as well as a diode protection block for the power supply of the servo controller.

Hexapod - a six-legged spider robot can be controlled using a wireless joystick from PS2 or PS3 via bluetooth module(not included in the package, but purchased separately) or using a programmable Arduino controller with a USB connector. Through a special computer application To program the servo controller, you can use the sliders to adjust the commands of the servos installed in the robot’s legs and change the response speed of each of them.

The Servo Controller Board 32 Channel USB (RKP-SCB-32C) is sold separately.

Servo controller for Arduino spider robot RKP-SCB-32C has connectivity additional components for Arduino. ()

To move all six legs, the spider robot uses 18 micro servos, which are also purchased separately. For example, a sub-micro steering machine 9 Gram TowerPro SG90 Micro Servo (TPSG90S) or similar in parameters and dimensions.

The kit for self-assembly of the spider robot RKP-RCS-2013B-KIT includes:
- A set of black aluminum spare parts for assembling the spider robot body.
- A set of mechanical grippers (the “mandible” of the spider robot). Installed optionally. For the grips to work, it is necessary to install 2 additional steering gears.
- A set of bolts, screws, nuts, washers, adapters, brass bushings and stands.
- Electronic components for assembly: wires for supplying power to the switch, diode bridge for powering the servo controller and control boards, a switch for supplying power to the control unit.

For final assembly and configuration of the spider robot, the following components are required (purchased separately):
- 18 sub-micro servos
- USB servocontroller for 32 servos RKP-SCB-32C
- Wireless receiver control of commands received from the operator (if necessary)
- Wireless joystick PS2 Wireless Gamepad V2.0 for Arduino (if necessary)
- Li-Po battery(2S) 7.4V
-

We present a simple mini project on Arduino for beginners - a Spider Robot controlled by an IR remote control. To make this robot with your own hands, you will need a minimum of parts and tools. In the article you can find out the list of necessary materials and tools for its manufacture, we also posted detailed instructions with assembly diagrams, parts drawings and a finished sketch.

Video. Robot spider on the control panel

The base of the robot consists of two plywood glued together with a heat gun; the spider's legs are made of steel wire with a diameter of 2 mm. An IR receiver is used to receive the signal from the remote control, and three servomotors are used for movement. Power is supplied from a 9V Krona battery. IN in this example The Robotdyn UNO microcontroller is used, but any Arduino board can be used.

Do-it-yourself spider robot on Arduino

For this project we will need:

• Arduino UNO board;
• IR receiver;
• any remote control;
• plywood 3 - 4 mm thick;
• wire with a diameter of 1.5 - 2 mm;
• three servos;
• 9 V battery;
• wires and electrical tape.

You can see all the necessary materials in the photo above. In addition, you will need a number of tools: pliers for cutting and bending wire, a hacksaw or jigsaw for cutting plywood, a heat gun for fastening parts, glue for gluing servos, a utility knife and a soldering iron. We also used spider leg dowels to protect the table from scratches and reduce noise.

On next photo you can see the design with reverse side, indicating the sizes of plywood boards. For the convenience of connecting servos to Arduino, we soldered all the positive wires (they are red) together, and we also connected the wires going to GND from the servos (they are brown). To the wires for controlling the servomotors ( yellow color) we soldered the wire to the contact.

Photo. Spider robot device controlled by IR remote control

We cut off the three-pin connectors from the servos; one of them is used to connect the IR receiver to the Arduino. Plywood boards are glued together using a heat gun, which ensures reliable fastening, and you don’t have to wait long - the plastic hardens within a few minutes. The servos and the connector for the IR receiver can be glued to the body with glue.

The most difficult stage in the project can be considered making the spider's legs from wire. Precision is required when bending them and fine tuning, depending on the location of the robot’s center of gravity. If the paws are not made accurately, the robot may tip over and fall to one side or another when walking. The battery for power can be placed on top or attached to the bottom of the plywood with double-sided tape.

Assembling a spider robot using IR control

Download the project for free

1. cut out two planks of the required size

2. glue the boards together with a heat gun

3. cut off the wires with connectors from the servos

4. glue three servos together

5. solder the wires from the servos together

6. solder wires with contacts to one connector

5. glue the servos to the robot body

6. glue the connector for the IR receiver to the body

7. cut the steel wire to the required length

8. bend the wire for the paws according to the drawing

9. glue the levers from the servos to the paws

10. select an IR receiver for your remote control

11. specify commands from the remote control in the file ir_command_codes.h

12. Assembling a spider robot with Arduino UNO

13. testing the spider robot + IR control

Any questions about manufacturing and setup of this project you can ask in the comments to this post or on our channel YouTube in the comments under the video for the mini project “ Arduino robot spider + IR control".

Also often read:

Julian Horsey built this cute spider robot on Arduino based(controller Arduino Mega). The design uses only two electric motors, which are controlled by H-bridge relay modules, which allows the spider to move forward, backward or slowly turn by changing the direction of rotation of the electric motors. Control - from a smartphone via Bluetooth. The spider moves similar to a tank or robot, whose maneuvers can be controlled by different speeds rotation of its two wheels.

For those interested in details - Additional Information about how it's done. Is not comprehensive guide in terms of assembly, it would have turned out to be too bulky. Rather, it is a set of ideas and tips that leaves room for creativity.

Step 4. Setting up your smartphone

Controlling via Bluetooth is very easy. To send commands to the robot, Julian Horsey used Bluetooth Terminal Programm. Then I switched to using Arduino Bluetooth Controller. The second program allows you to distribute commands across keys, like in a game remote control. Arduiono converts these clicks into corresponding output signals. If you need more control flexibility, you can try the MIT App Inventor system, but the author of the robot did not try this.

Step 5: You're done

If one of the readers decides to repeat this development and achieves success, send us a photo or a link to Youtube with a recording of what you did. Well, what if self-assembly For now, working on a robot seems too complicated to you, take a look at the “” page, maybe look for something that you like and seems like a feasible task.