Roboracer Alpha™
Introduction of the Car
This kit is an extremely flexible robot kit particularly designed for education, competition and entertainment purposes .
It also has a supersonic sensor, battery box and other fixed holes to enable installation of various senors. This is a very exciting and versatile robot that allows for learning robotics. With this kit , you can implement diverse interesting ideas, such as automatic avoidance of obstacles and line inspection.
Roboracer Alpha Mu™
This is the easiest robot vechicle to build with this kit. It is the simplest to assemble and to configure the micro controller. This robot is capable of avoiding obstacles by using its sonar sensors.
Roboracer Alpha Mu™ comes preloaded with a simple program that can be altered or modified.
Function of each part：
Battery compartment (with a switch): supply power for the vehicle
DC motor + wheels: drive the vehicle to move
Acrylic Chassis: the frame of the car
L298N motor driving board: drive the motor to rotate
UNO R3 core board: the brain of the car, controls all the parts
IO expansion board: combined with the UNO, make connection become more easier
SG90 Micro Servo: enable the distance sensor to rotate 180 degrees
Ultrasonic sensor module and holder: distance measurement and obstacle avoidance
Caster wheel : enables the car to turn
Screws and nuts : to attach sensors and boards to chassis
Micro Servo housing: to house and attach servo to chassis
Power switch: To turn on and off the robot car
Pins used by Alpha Mu™
Table shows how the PINs between the Roboracer Alpha™ and the components are wired up for Roboracer Alpha Mu™ .
How the motors are wired up to the L298N board
Connection Port Motor
Out1 Right Motor
Out2 Right Motor
Out3 Left Motor
Out4 Left Motor
Testing the Motor connections
You can test the wiring connections of your Roboracer Alpha Mu using the Roboracer Alpha Mu™ Firmware that comes preloaded on your Roboracer Alpha™ UNO controller.
Using the supplied USB cable, plug the Roboracer Alpha controller into your computer. On a Windows PC the controller will automatically install the appropriate driver software and register itself as one of the COM ports on your computer system. You can now use Device Manager to get the name of the COM port the Roboracer Alpha controller is conneted to on your computer.
Open Arduino IDE on your computer system. Navigate into the tools menu, then select the Port: option to set your COM port for your Roboracer Alpha™ controller.
Once you have set the com port within Arduino IDE, from the tools menu select the Serial Monitor option.
This will open the Serial Monitor window. Make sure the baud is set to 9600, if not then use the drop down list on the bottom right corner to set the baud rate to 9600. The Roboracer Alpha controller will prompt you with 'Do you want to setup the mode for this device? (y/n)'
Now unplug the Roboracer Alpha controller from your computer.
Click the Clear output button on the bottom right corner of the Serial Manager window.
Not plug the Roboracer Alpha controller into your computer.
When prompted:-'Do you want to setup the mode for this device? (y/n)'
Type 'y' into the send field and click the send button.
When prompted:- 'Set mode by typing a value between 0 and 3:-'
Type '2' into the send field and click the send button. Wait for a while and the mode will be set to 2. This is the Right Motor Check mode. In this mode the right motor will spin forward and then backwards and do this pattern constantly. If you detect the motor is not spining in the correct direction, you can swap over the positive and negative wiring of the right motor.
Type in 'y' without the quote marks into the send field and click the send button. Wait for a while, and you will be prompted with:- 'Set mode by typing a value between 0 and 3:-'.
Type '1' with the quotemarks into the send field and click the send button. Wait for a while and the mode will be set to 1. This is the Left Motor Check mode. In this mode the left motor will spin forward and then backwards and do this pattern constantly. If you detect the motor is not spining in the correct direction, you can swap over the positive and negative wiring of the left motor.
Now unplug the Roboracer Alpha controller from your computer, Clear the output using the Clear output button, and replug the controller into your PC. Repeat all the steps to set the mode to 0. Mode 0 is the autonomous mode.
Building your Alpha Mu's chassis
Follow these steps to build your Roboracer's chassis.
Attaching the electronic components to the chassis
You can use double sided tape or double sided mounting tape to attach the Roboracer Alpha Controller and L298N Board to the top of the chassis base. Make sure all the wiring is plugged into the controller and attached to the L298N board and the Battery Pack. Its up to you if you want to wire up the power switch to positive, and if you would do it then you can connect the battery box positive cable to the switch, and from the switch to the posivite input terminal of the Motor Driver board.
Wiring up the sonar sensor
Attach the subsonic sensor trig pin cable to PIN 9 of Roboracer Alpha controller.
Attach the subsonic sensor echo pin cable to PIN 10 of the Roboracer Alpha controller.
Secure the subsonic sensor to the front of your robot.
Testing the Subsonic Sonar Sensor
You can now test the subsonic sensors by opening up the Serial Monitor of Arduino IDE and connecting Roboracer Alpha controller to a usb connector of your computer. Select the appropriate COM port your Roboracer Alpha controller is attached to.
When prompted:-'Do you want to setup the mode for this device? (y/n)'
Type 'y' into the send field and click the send button.
When prompted:- 'Set mode by typing a value between 0 and 3:-'
Type '3' into the send field and click the send button. Wait for a while and the mode will be set to 3. This is the Subsonic Sonar Check mode.
The Serial Monitor will now give you reading about the sonar sensor and the distance readings of objects placed infront of it in centimetres.