IUPUI Battle Bot: PAYDAR

PAYDAR was built in one semester, although the mechanical engineers had come up with the design a semester before, for their senior design project

I was asked to help out since they had no electrical engineers on the team

I ended up designing the power systems, and build the boards needed to run PAYDAR, in return I got lots of headaches, sleepless nights, and a free trip to San Francisco (I had to drive)

We competed in Comedy Central's Battle Bots Season 5.0 (I don't like the show, being at the competition live is so much better, you don't get the cheesy commentary, and the bad sound effects)

You won't see PAYDAR on TV yet, we went out in the preliminary bouts, actually lost our first bout

We where up against a spinbot and the best strategy is to hit the bot before it can spin up, thus we went full throttle into the opposite wall, since we missed the other bot, and bent the wedge under, resulting in our steering wheel to be lifted from the ground, so we could not steer, we flailed around the arena until we impaled our selves on the spike strip, but in the processes, we knocked off and bent a few spikes in the processes

In other words, we defeated ourselves.... we will be back

PAYDAR:

PAYDAR would not be possible with out out sponsors:

Alro supplied all the aluminum

Bellkins roll formed the wheel cylinder

Cummins machined the wheel cylinder

Kaydon supplied the two wheel cylinder bearings

Welding Unlimited helped with the welding

IUPUI donated parts, personal, and space to build the bot

RCA donated the front steering motor

PAYDAR with the covers removed, the empty space in the back is for the four 12-volt 18 amp/hour batteries:

The wheel cylinder is rotated by belt and pulley connected to a gear head motor

The outside of the wheel cylinder is outfitted with a optical encoder, which reports the wheel cylinder's location to the microcontroller

The microcontroller running a PID loop then calculates the PWM signals needed to run the H-Bridge, which turns the motor, allowing for proportional steering 

The main motor (15 HP peak) is run by a an electric forklift motorcontroller current limited to 300 amps, which is controlled by the same microcontoller that runs the steering motor, as well, as decoding the receiver signals sent from the remote

PAYDAR driving around campus

Videos:

manuver.avi This video shows the maneuverability of PAYDAR

botcam.avi This video shows PAYDAR driving around with the camera on it

Tim.avi This video shows Tim, riding around on PAYDAR