Rambler

Rambler was created by Dan Magagnosc and Andy Wilson in 2008 for the Firefighting Robot Competition in the Walking Division. It won third place in its division and the Versa valve challenge for that year. You can see a video of it in the competition here in Trinity.

The robot is officially becoming the club's Trinity Firefighting Competition legacy robot. Jeremy Bridon will be leading the legacy team for the 2010-2011 academic year along with the side research project WalkerBot.

= Description =

Ramber is a six-legged robot whose two front and back have two degrees of freedom, while the middle two legs only have one. The robot was designed for simplicity and consistent movement. The device is contained within a cubic foot and used to be controlled by a Parallax Propeller, but is now being interfaced with an Arduino Mega. In total, there are ten (10) continuous servos.

= Hardware List =


 * 2x IR sensors link

= Project Goals = Rambler, for 2010-2011, must accomplish all of the following goals: win, cheap, stable, and easily reproducible!

= Current Tasks =
 * Week 1:
 * Clean chassis (Remove gunk, stickers, unneeded hardware)
 * Repair any mechanical failures (fix joins, tighten bolts, etc)
 * Modify a continuous servo to give a position / resistance ratio
 * Move three of the six legs using an Arduino
 * Week 2:
 * http://www.instructables.com/id/Hack-your-servo-v200-Add-10-bit-incremental-a/
 * http://www.01mech.com/MagEnc
 * Make sure we can get a reliable analog value feed-back from a continuos servo
 * Interface with an Arduino Mega
 * Genearl Tasks
 * Remove the Propeller and use the Arduino Mega microcontroller
 * Verify all servos correctly move
 * Verify wiring
 * Create the sensor "head" (a rotating head that has both range and light sensors)
 * Redo the padded / rubber foot pads
 * Clean surface, but do not repaint
 * Remove buttons / high-leg state sensors
 * Create a sensor / head package
 * Put out the flame using the solenoid / compressed air technology
 * Implement a wall following
 * Have a remote control option
 * Have wireless control
 * Implement a zero-degree turn
 * Find a servo controller that can support all major servos
 * Find a good power management utility

= Team Members =
 * Jillian Newhall
 * Jeremy Bridon
 * More...