Construction Methods
The majority of the physical construction was planned through extensive SolidWorks Models. With these models, we were able to verify that we would have space for all of the components needed and also show that the ping pong ball had a clear path into the bin. The base consisted of two sandwiched layers encasing the drivetrain and batteries. The motors were fixed to motor mounts and couplers attached the motor shafts to the wheel shafts. On top of this layer sat the main power board of our robot and the two motor driver boards. The top part of our robot was removable and contained the IR detection circuits and E128 along with the voltage regulator boards.
After creation of our assembly in Solid Works, we were able to laser-cut them using .DXF files on the LaserCamm. An example is shown below.