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Team Synergy (Robofest Team)

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Krumlink

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While at a competition, I came across a robo-league called "robofest" sponsored by a local university and several other corporations. Robofest, Annual Autonomous Robotics Competition for Middle/High School Students - Lawrence Tech

It is based around 2-4 team members with a mentor or two. Myself and another student will enter the competition with a very complex robot design, but I have skills in C, Microcontrollers and He has adequate C# skills. We will be using MCC18 and Visual Studio C#. We plan on calling the team "Team Synergy". This will be a grab n go competition, we will dominate.
 

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Yes, TARDEC is donating a SICK LIDAR to me personally :)
 
Ok, bit of a update on the goal of this robot:
It will be built on a small tracked chassis, and will be controlled indirectly by a small computer, called the Microclient jrDX by Norhtec. it will have dual RS232 for interface of the microcontroller board and the SICK LIDAR. The robot will explore an unknown environment, mapping its surroundings by sending each byte directly to the computer, which will build a small dot map and storing it as some file type (possibly text file, it will be interesting to look at). There will also be several infrared sensors on the robot to ensure that it always has another method of watching its surroundings. There will be a total of 14 proximity sensors on the robot to ensure that it will never get stuck. In the future, we may expand it to include GPS or some kind of wireless interface for video feed.
 
Here's something terrible when it comes to efficiency (it is rather unfortunate): Due to certain circumstances, we will need to go from a battery source to a power inverter (dc to ac) and back into a computer PSU (ac to dc) and then to the computer. Very inefficient.
 
Here's something terrible when it comes to efficiency (it is rather unfortunate): Due to certain circumstances, we will need to go from a battery source to a power inverter (dc to ac) and back into a computer PSU (ac to dc) and then to the computer. Very inefficient.

Hm... that is unfortunate... surely there's a solution out there somewhere?
 
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Why not buy a DC input PC PSU?

Convert the mains to DC and not use an inverter.
 
We are instead going to use the uclient jrDX which runs on straight 5VDC at 1.8amps. That will save the terrible efficiency of the step up step down converters.
 
Where are you going to get the 5V supply from?
 
Wow Krum, you're quite ambitious. Here at UM (I almost went to LTU!) the research group I'm working with is doing a very similar project. We also use lidars for mapping along with GPS and LED beacons and whatnot, and I'm continuously amazed at the logic and mathematics involved with doing this. Good luck with your robot.
 
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