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54R-00M Exploration droid (WIP)
Project Description
This robot is currently my most elaborate personal project. It is an original design for a robot inspired by the droids of the Star Wars series. Robotics has been a long-time hobby of mine and I had a great desire to create my own robot companion. I've been enamored by the droid building hobbyist community for a while but I decided to deviate from the crowd by designing a unique droid separated from the standard R2 unit replicas.
The Design
The model is scaled to the height of a standard R2-D2 droid with mechanical structures modeled in its structure. The head rotates with a planetary gear system. Various panels and latches are attached to servo motors. 54R-00M uses a single servo gripper on its left side. There are many similarities of droids design to that of my senior capstone project. The locomotion of the droid is initially remote-controlled until an autonomous system is put in place. This will use a Jetson Nano operating the JetBot API. The wheels and motor system are developed from a recycled "Swag Board" (hoverboard). This allows the droid to keep pace with its user's gait. Jetson Nano is in serial communication with an Arduino in order to control the servos and motor controller. A Raspberry Pi camera will be running Open CV for image processing. Audio input is taken by a built-in microphone as well as vocal commands taken from a cellular device. 54R-00M is able to follow users through the use of a built-in GPS and compass used in conjunction with a navigation app. The New England Droid Builder Club and MrBaddeley Printed Droid group have been invaluable for their help and guidance with the development of this project.
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