3D Printed Robotic Spider

by cbyrne10 in Workshop > 3D Printing

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3D Printed Robotic Spider

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We, a group of three students--Ayomade Adeolu-Akande, Corrina Byrne, and Rayhana Essahili--from Saint James School, set out on an endeavor to create a robotic spider that can not only walk, but also can climb up walls. To begin this venture, we started by researching different projects of robotic spiders to get a general idea of how we should go about developing our own wall-walking robot. After looking for examples of spiders to make, we settled on trying the project at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnMmnd9k6q8&t=1472s before we moved on to designing our own version that has the capability of scaling walls.  

Downloads

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Supplies

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  1. 3D Printer Filament
  2. 1x Arduino Nano
  3. 1x Nano 328P Expansion Adapter Breakout Board IO Shield
  4. 1x HC05 Bluetooth Module
  5. 12x SG90 Mini Servo
  6. 2x Lithium Ion Battery
  7. Jumper Wires

The Decision

After finding the project we would begin with, we began by printing out the pieces we needed using polycarbonate filament on a 3D printer using the files provided below:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4815137


Print

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After printing the pieces we needed, we put some of them together by attaching 3 leg sections together using servo motors. With a sum of 3 servo motors per leg, we attached the 4 legs to the spider body.


New Arms

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While trying to assemble the final pieces, we noticed that the servo arms helping to hold the legs together did not fit properly in the printed STL files. When first assembling, we cut the arms that came with the servo motors. We ended up redesigning them so that they fit properly without alterations. We printed them using the 3D printer and used them to replace the original cut arms.

Bluetooth

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After we finished assembling the spider, we connected all 12 Servo motors to the central Arduino Nano using the Nano 328P Expansion Adapter Breakout Board IO Shield.

We connected the HC05 Bluetooth Module to the breakout board (TX --> RX, RX --> TX). Using an open source "Bluetooth Car Controller" (https://play.google.com/store/apps/de...) app on the play store, we connected an android phone to the Arduino Nano.   

Bluetooth Code

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We wrote some basic Arduino code to test the bluetooth module.

#include <Servo.h>

Servo myServo;

void setup(){
myServo.attach(9);
Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop(){
if (Serial.available() > 0){
data = Serial.read();
if (data == 'L'){
Serial.print("L button pressed. Moving left.");
} else if (data == 'R'){
Serial.print("R button pressed. Moving right.");
}
}
}

Controlling the Robot

Using the code from https://github.com/Arijit1080/Spidy-T..., we zeroed all the motors and were able to control our spider using the phone through bluetooth.


Video of progress: https://youtube.com/shorts/gzXyTn3sFaE?feature=share

Challenges

  1. 3D Printed pieces not solid enough. Repeated breakages.
  2. Servo arms didn't fit in design. Redesigned Servo Arms were relatively janky.
  3. Servo motors are not held in place strongly enough. Repeated zeroing needed.

While the spider s moving in a realistic and interesting manner, it currently cannot change its position. Instead, the legs just slide across the surfaces.

Solution: Redesigning the spider. In the future, using Autodesk Fusion, we will redesign the entire spider body according to our unique specifications and dimensions. We were unable to implement wall-climbing capabilities within the time frame, but we plan to include that in our redesign using a portb