Early Prototypes

Above are two early prototypes of our robot.  Our goal was to have a quick and compact design that relied on maneuverability to complete the task at hand.   In our first design, shown in the first row, the motors were housed outside of our robot.  This was a bad idea, that was corrected in the second version, as they were quite vulnerable.  These robots focused on simply pushing balls around, and got us acquainted with handyboad use and basic programming techniques.  We ultimately used these two robots when completing course assignments.  As a word of advice to future 6.270 participants, focus the majority of your early time on rapid prototyping.  Just make something for the sake of making something and testing it.  It is best not to attempt to make the perfect robot the first try, as you will undoubtedly run into troubles later on.