Mini sumo robot, 3rd generation

In 2018, I decided to compete with a newly designed mini sumo robot in RobotSM. Last years I used a chassis from Fingertech Robotics but this year I wanted to do a complete remake.

The robot
The internals of the robot

Specification

  • 5 Time-of-Flight laser-ranging modules, VL53L0X
  • 3 reflective sensors mounted from below for detecting the play area
  • 2 Spark motors from FingerTech Robotics
  • 2 sumo wheels from Fingertech Robotics
  • 1.5 mm laser cut steel chassis and some 3D printed parts
  • 360mAh@7.2VLiPo battery
  • 128×64 OLED display (very useful for debugging!)
  • 2 MC33886, H-bridge
  • MCU, STM32F4xx

Summary

So, I guess the main question is if I won the competition? No, I ended up at the bottom of the list. My robot did not stand a chance against those robots that have evolved under many years of competing. I think I might have won like max one set. Despite the result, it was great fun and gave me lot of ideas how to improve the robot, e.g. I need a quicker robot and the sensors for detecting the opponent will need a much shorter response time. But I save those improvements for a rainy day…