The ELEGOO Robot Assembly
After a long wait, the robot kits finally arrived !! I have to say that I was looking forward to assemble the robot that I had been trying to recreate on Solidworks for weeks. Overall, I found the assembly process quite easy as the instruction manual was a great guide. In this blog post I will discuss the steps I followed to assemble the robot.
The robot kit was very neatly packaged. All of the components were within a certain box and were listed on the outside. Accompanying the robot components was an instruction book. The book outlines each step in the assembly and covered all of the built in functions that the robot has.
The image above shows all of the components that were found within the boxes. I don’t know what I really expected but I felt like there were not as many components as I had anticipated. I thought I may be intimidated by the amount of components and a potentially hard assembly process. However, after inspecting all of the components, realizing the kit came with a screwdriver and flicking through the little handbook, I was excited to start!
For this blog I separated the assembly into three stages.
Stage 1: The lower tier of the robot — the wheels, motors, brackets and the foothold.
Stage 2: The middle tier — the expansion board, ultrasonic sensor and the fastener plate.
Stage 3: The upper tier — the battery box and top plate. The addition of the 6P cables.
Stage 1
Steps taken during Stage 1
- I attached the motor brackets to the back side of the aluminum alloy board using 8 M3*6 Pan head machine screws.
- I connected each of the motors to a motor bracket using M3*5 countersunk screws, ensuring that I installed them so that the motor axles were at the bottom of the bracket groove.
- To attach the tires I had to add on a coupling to each motor axle, aligning them with the cross section of the motor shaft. I then used M4*6 Round head Phillips screws to secure the coupling, so that the wheel wouldn’t come loose and detach during operation.
- The tires slotted onto the coupling’s hexagonal top and I used the round head Phillips screws to screw the center of the tire.
- I attached the foothold using two M3*11 double-pass copper columns and screwed them in using M3*6 Pan head machine screws.
I had originally thought that the DC motors would be much harder to work with. I was expecting that I would have to add on additional parts to them, but to my surprise, they were very easy to attach to the motor brackets and connect to the wheels.
From further inspection of the assembly I could see that the motors provide the wheels with bidirectional movement, meaning they have an excellent range of motion. This movement allows the wheels to turn in any direction both forwards and backwards, which is what will be needed for the obstacle course.
Stage 2
Steps taken during Stage 2
- I added the NANO onto the expansion board and ensured that the red and blue modules were connected to the expansion board and aligned correctly. I then screwed a M3*11 to support the smaller blue module.
- I screwed in the four M3*11 copper columns into the aluminum alloy board using M3*6 pan head machine screws.
- I placed the expansion board on the columns and aligned the holes up with each other. To secure the board in place I screwed the holes using the M3*6 pan head machine screws. I then attached the ultrasonic sensor to the board.
- I attached 4 M3*45 copper pillars to the aluminum board using M3*6 pan head screws, to support the fastener for the battery box.
I was anticipating a trickier assembly involving the expansion board. However, all that I needed to do was to insert the ultrasonic sensor pins into the holder, add a copper column to one of the modules for support and connect the Arduino Nano.
I was very careful handling the board while checking that the modules were in the right position and attached properly. I was worried that if one component on the board experienced the slightest bit of damage that it would ruin the chances of the robot ever working.
One thing that I did observe was that the ultrasonic sensor and IR sensors are positioned quite high, relative to the ground. I thought that the sensors would struggle to sense certain objects such as obstacles of a smaller height and after I tested the functions of the built in software, I found that I was right!
Stage 3
This is the final assembly stage, adding on the power supply and connecting the motors to the expansion board.
Steps taken during Stage 3
- I screwed the M3*23 copper cylinders onto the copper pillars.
- I placed the top plate onto the cylinders and screwed the plate using M3*6 pan head machine screws.
- I connected one end of a 6P cable to the right motor and the other end to the right side of the expansion board. I repeated this on the left side using the other 6P cable. I also connected the battery cable to the expansion board.
The last stage was very simple. From the assembly process, I could see how each part was connected such as, how the battery and motors attached to the expansion board.
The expansion board basically acts as the robots brain, sending signals and commands to different components. The battery provides a power supply to the expansion board, and therefore the robot. The ultrasonic and IR sensors act as input devices, sending signals to the Arduino Nano. The Nano receives the signals and sends commands to the DC motors which act as the output devices of the system.
I am very happy with the completed assembly. I can’t think of any mistakes I made during the process, thanks to the very clear and simple instructions.
Overall, I enjoyed the assembly process. It was definitely the easiest, most enjoyable aspect of the overall Elegoo tumbller project for me.
The Robot in Action!
The robot has six built in functions.
- Standby Mode
- Auto-follow Mode
- Obstacle-avoidance Mode
- Bounce Mode
- Glowing Mode
- Mobile Control
I tested all of the functions listed above. The main function I will be focusing on in the coming days is the Obstacle-avoidance Mode. I plan to use elements of the robot’s obstacle-avoidance code and apply it to my own code that I will write for the robot to go through an obstacle course.
Click on the link below to see the robot using it’s obstacle-avoidance function!!
Stay tuned for the next blog posts where I will talk about the coding for the course, the building of the course and the ping pong ball launcher.
