Campus Rover

Hello! Today, Luke Hampton, Cameron Lindekugel, and Myself (Camryn Willis) have been working on a project for the past 2 months while taking our classes here at National Park College. Our Physics Professor, Dr. Post, has tasked us with formulating and completing a project by the end of October while introducing us to Instructables and how they can help others fulfill their curiosity and create what they want. This project is what we called the " Campus Rover," with the intention of making a robot that was able to travel the campus and passively promote our engineering program while also implementing the 8 steps of the Engineering Process.

The supplies required to complete this project was mostly provided by the school besides a few off the shelf items I bought at lowes. The overall body, the motors, and the brain of the robot is constructed with parts made by Vex robotics. The Vex set we used was the EDR which has been discontinued by the manufacture. The supplies bought from Lowes includes the handle, the hinges to allow for us to open and close the top side of the robot to make any necessary changes and the gate latch. We also had access to some old acrylic that the owner no longer wanted due to the plastic cover over the top had begun to melt to the acrylic which made it extremely difficult to get off cleanly. The Vex kit included all of the nuts and bolts as well as the allen wrenches, so we were taken care of there.

Our robot was designed with simplicity and functionality in mind. We first looked into the overall build of the Mars robot to base it off of but smaller and less technically advanced due to our limitations of the vex equipment we had. It features a straightforward four-wheel setup, each powered by its own motor for independent control and smooth movement. Using a wireless controller, we can easily maneuver the robot in any direction, offering a responsive driving experience. The design is minimalistic, with no unnecessary components, focusing purely on the essential elements needed for basic mobility and control. This approach not only makes the robot easy to build and operate but also leaves room for future upgrades or adjustments if needed.

After researching the rough idea of what we wanted the robot to look like, we began working on the body. The body consisted of two plates on the base, this will provide a large and stable enough base to put all of the necessary motors, wires and other electronics we may need. After the base had been put together, we wanted the electronics to accessible and easy to replace and even improve later on, so we went with more of a open carriage top. As you can tell from the pictures above, the hinges were added to both the acrylic and the the half metal plate as you see above, as were the gate latch pieces and for the handle. The handle was placed on the acrylic piece more towards the middle of the robots body.

We initially debated whether to use tracks with tank steering or stick with traditional wheels for our robot’s mobility. After considering the pros and cons, we decided to go with the more conventional wheel setup. To securely mount the motors, I (Camryn Willis) came up with the idea of adding internal support bars to firmly hold them in place, ensuring they stayed secure during operation. This approach gave us more flexibility in the design process and helped maintain a clean, organized structure. We then considered the power requirements, initially testing a six-wheel configuration. However, after researching VEX forums and learning that many teams had successfully used just four motors to move robots weighing over 30 pounds, we decided to scale back to a more efficient four-motor setup seeing how our robot was nowhere near that heavy. To optimize the design, I positioned the brain as close to the center as possible, minimizing the risk of loose wires or potential shorts over time. This thoughtful placement helped keep the robot balanced and ensured reliable long-term performance.

Although it is possible for this rover to operate in an autonomous capacity, due to time restrictions, we chose an alternative route for rover control, utilizing the VEX Robotics wireless controller. I, (Luke Hampton structured the code to allow for our rover to be controlled wirelessly via remote control. The remote (Pictured Below) is not nearly at its full potential. With this wireless software and code, our robot can perform any task from emitting light, and starting a video recording, to collecting a sample of something off the ground. The VEX Cortex (Brain of the Rover) has over twenty slots for add-ons such as those previously mentioned. Currently, we can use our wireless code to steer and control our robot utilizing a tank steering design. Our current code is pictured below as well as the wireless controller used.

The total weight of the robot was 12.4 lbs and accomplished everything we wanted as far as being able to easily work on future upgrades with the ease of access and promoting our growing engineering program here at National Park. This project was fairly simple yet offered the group a great deal of learning robotics, developing an idea and understanding what was needed to be done. Thank you for looking through our project and we hope to be able update you in the future with any improvements that we may try to add on!