Four Eyes
Builder: Byon GarrabrantFour Eyes was my first attempt at a maze solving robot, inspired by the PAReX Maze competition.
After reading about using sheet metal for a robot platform in Servo Magazine, I bought some aluminium flashing from Hope Depot for about $0.30 each, cut it with tin snips, bent it with my brake/shear, and had a nice motor mount for my Solarbotics motors.
I mounted a PVC sheet to the top, an ARC controller to that, and 4 Sharp IR range sensors, and was ready to start writing code.
I started by getting the bot to drive in a straight line, syncing to the walls as he moved. Then worked on turning 90 degrees, sensing the walls where I could. I wrote the actual maze solving logic and test it on the PC, and then the C code just dropped into the AVR and worked the first time. But I was still having problems driving and turning properly.
I added wheel encoders to improve, but it wasn't enough. I also added a second PVC layer to mount both left/right sensors on the front of the bot. Four Eyes, named from the 4 distance sensors, competed in the PAReX maze solving event, and took second place, but didn't actually complete a maze.
My next maze solver will use stepper motors. Four Eyes has since been disassembled for parts :(
For the maze, we used a 4' x 4' pegboard, white shelving boards, and 1/4" pegs. It took a while to learn that we needed a jig to drill the peg holes properly, but evently, I had a reconfigurable 4x4 maze.
We could layout many maze configurations easily.
