Roomba Stair Challenge [2019]
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Prototyping & Design
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Brainstormed several designs that would possibly be able to complete challenge to "get a Roomba up a flight of stairs successfully and as fast as possible with the only controls allowed being one of the rumbas preexisting buttons and using only scrap and self-designed 3D printed parts
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Prototyped several versions of a tri-wheel climbing mechanism and experimented with a variety of base mounting options
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Built 2 prototype units and ran them through a series of tests to identify failure points and work towards a successful final design
Fabrication / Outcome
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Utilized a combination of water-jetting, 3D printing, milling, along with a variety of other shop equipment to fabricate parts
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Chose to incorporate the Roomba's docking button and build the dock into the base so that the Roomba could self dock to the platform
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upon docking the Roomba would trigger to switches, connecting batteries, held in custom designed mounts, to the motor + gear box assemblies.
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Had a successful competition run, being one of the two of four robots two make it up the stairs, finishing in 2nd with a time just over that of the first place team
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The video highlights our functioning unit yet, it should be noted if I were to do it again I would have made the drive shafts for the wheels run through a singular axle so that the wheels would not have spun on at different rates, hopefully resulting in a smoother step transition
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