“Every year in Toulouse (France) there’s the Toulouse Robot Race #TRR2021
The race consists of a 10 meter autonomous sprint for biped and quadruped robots.
The current record I gather for quadrupeds is 42 seconds for a 10 meter sprint.
So with that in mind I had to come up with a plan of designing a robot that I thought could beat that in order to become the new reigning champion!!!
Seeking a bit of inspiration from a fellow Instructables member “jegatheesan.soundarapandian” and last year’s winner of the Toulouse Robot Race “Oracid 1” who both seem to love designing and sharing tutorials on how to build quadrupeds. I got started on basically copying there design and making it a bit bigger!
The design is based on a five bar linkage mechanism for each leg 2 servos power each leg for a total of 8 servos.
The rules state that apart from the start signal the whole race must be carried out by the robot autonomously so I had to come up with a light weight system to keep the robot on track in this case I used a QMC5883L Magnetometer (digital compass) so it could keep true to its orientation, a HC-SR04 Ultrasonic sensor in case the robot really messes up and starts hitting the wall at a 90 degree angle and I just used a step counter in the code to tell it how many steps it should do for 10 meters.
In case your interested in building this robot don’t worry this monkey’s got everything thought out!
100% Support free 3D printable Body:
Everything apart from the electronics and screws to attach the electronics are 3D printable, the same small cross head screws are the only ones used, all you’ll need is a small cross head screwdriver to assemble the robot
Easy plug and play electronics:
no complex soldering required
Reasonable print time:
He may look big and imposing but he’s only a 15 hour print (ok a long time for some :D)
Reasonable Build volume requirements:
He can be printed on a relatively small printer requiring a build volume of only L:150mm x W:150mm x H: 25mm
Total robot cost:
The robot alone costs around 75$ to build charger included
A 3D printed controller (optional) is required if you want the same set up as I have.
WARNING:
The 5V 3A power supply that I used isn’t the best solution as for this robot to walk all 8 servos must run simultaneously and thus they draw quite a lot of current don’t worry I haven’t had the robot catch fire or anything but expect the power transistor to heat up quite a bit I would not recommend using the robot for more than 2 minutes at a time letting it cool down between runs to avoid any unwanted damage to the Servo shield.
If any of you have a solution to this problem your input would be greatly appreciated!
Supplies:SUPPLIES FOR THE ROBOT:
8x Tower Pro MG90S analog 180 deg servo (Aliexpress/Amazon) 1x Sunfounder Wireless Servo Control Board (Sunfounder Store/ RobotShop) 1x Arduino NANO (Aliexpress/Amazon) 1x NRF24L01 Transceiver Module(You don’t need this if your not using the controller) (Aliexpress/Amazon) 1x Magnetometer (digital compass) QMC5883L GY-273 (Aliexpress/Amazon) 1x Ultrasonic sensor HC-SR04 (Aliexpress/Amazon) 2x 18650 3.7V Li-ion batteries (Aliexpress/Amazon) 1x 18650 dual Battery holder with on off switch (Aliexpress/Amazon) 1x 18650 Li-ion Battery charger (Aliexpress/Amazon) 4x female to female dupont jumper cables 10 cm long (Aliexpress/Amazon) 4x female to female dupont jumper cables 20 cm long (Aliexpress/Amazon) 10x Screws 2mm x 8mm (same as the screws in a pack of servos) (Aliexpress/Amazon)CONTROLLER:
To control this Robot manually you will need the 3D printed Arduino Controller (link here)
The Robot can also be purely autonomous so the controller is not mandatory.
PLASTICS:
The parts can be printed in PLA or PETG or ABS.
!! Please note a 500g spool is more than enough to print 1 Robot !!
3D PRINTER:
Minimum build platform required: L150mm x W150mm x H25mm
Any 3d printer will do. I personally printed the parts on the Creality Ender 3 which is a low cost 3D printer under 200$ The prints turned out perfectly.”