Wednesday, November 12, 2014

The Broomba is Born!

The Broomba is Born!


Today we met up to discuss the mechanical aspect of our sweet sweeper robot, which we have named the Broomba. Our initial idea was to have a remote-controlled robot with the broom on the front to push around dirt. The broom in the front would also maybe move back and forth, controlled by a motor. Today we refined our idea to make a more efficient robot. 

The Initial Idea
We decided to change the broom from a push broom to a circular spinning brush. The brush would be connected to a motor which would make it rotate, which would collect the dust and push it into a dust pan that was located between the brush and the chassis. 

A few notes on the design

The brush is going to be attached to the chassis of our robot with 3-D printed and laser-cut pieces. The chassis has different holes in different sections of it, so a custom-printed part will be needed in order to securely attach it. 



We also toyed with the idea of different attachments for our Broomba, like a scrubber that shoots water, or a Swiffer attachment. Possible Swiffer funding??? ;)

Disclaimer: We are not electrical engineers.

Connor Gathers Assorted Goodies

Connor is not an Electrical Engineer,

but he decided to take some time this weekend to rip apart some devices, and salvage some components that may be useful.


Seen above are some tools used to get the job done, some cool motors, buttons, switches, and wheels, an IR remote control, a power cable, and a battery holder.  We will probably use some of this stuff.