“I always wanted a pet robot—one that runs around and takes care of itself.
Roamer 2 wanders about, detecting objects using sonar and her front bumper. She mostly stays out of trouble.
Her maximum run time is about 11 minutes, but she starts hunting her charger (using a Pixy camera and Arduino) after 4 minutes. Charge time is around two minutes. Because she is powered by super capacitors, she can charge and discharge tens of thousands of times (at most any rate) without degradation of the capacitors. The charging station is a 12” x 12” metal plate with a pole in the center. Roamer 2’s front bumper contacts the pole and a spring (lowered by a servo motor) contacts the metal plate. A bench power supply, set at 12 volts (max) and 1.6 amps (max) supplies the energy.
Supplies
- Boost converter
- 500 farad, 2.8 volt capacitor
- Lever switch, momentary
- photo resistor
- (2) Arduino
- Arduino motor shield
- Vacuum belt
- Three amp diode
- (4) 4.7 k resistor
- breadboard
- aluminum duct tape
- spring, 5.5 mm x 38 mm
- sheet steel
- Bench power supply
- Wire, solder, 3mm screws
- 3d printed parts (files available in this Instructable)
- Gear
- Servo motor
- Pixy camera
- Ultrasonic module
- Relay module”