Hardware

The robot was donated by the Hands-On Robotics Initiative. Due to time constraints and some delays, a prebuilt robot was delivered instead of a parts kits. The build instructions can be found on this Google Doc. It also includes other relevant instructions that will be referenced later, such as motor calibration, software installation and run instructions.

Hardware Overview

Default hardware (robot)

The robot consists of 12 C610 motor controllers, 12 M2006 motors, a Teensy board, cables and the chassis.

Additional hardware

• Raspberry Pi
• Raspberry Pi Camera
• 6S Lipo Battery 22.2V
• USB Battery Pack for Raspberry Pi
• Keyboard (for emergency stop)

Battery Charging Settings

The battery charger in the lab supports charging the 6S Lipo Battery. Settings can be found below:

Chemistry:    LiPo
Voltage:      22 Volts
Capacity:     1300mAh
Charge Rate:  5C
Series Count: 6S

The batteries took around 1 hour to charge and last around 2-3 hours per charge.

The USB Battery Pack used was a generic one that provided enough voltage for the Pi. These are usually battery packs that support fast charge technology for smart phones. An appropriate cable is needed (e.g: USB 3.0 to Micro-USB or otherwise)

Calibration Tips

• Motor calibration can be found in the doc linked earlier. The robot's casing may have to be opened to access some of the motor controllers.
• Instructions for leg calibration can be found here. Best results were achieved by supporting the robot with a box and adding paddings (made of paper towels and tape) between the legs and the box to get desired motor angles.