This is just a fun project that I thought I try out to build and improve my hobby skills. This project is fairly simple. BCR uses a L293D to control the driving motors at the base of the robot as well as a MiniMaestro to control the servos. The MiniMaestro communicates with the Arduino Board through a virtual Serial port with the SerialSoftware library. I also created an app with MIT App Inventor to control BCR with my tablet. The app sends a byte of data to the Arduino via the HC-05 and with that data the Arduino puts it into a switch function to determine what to do. The servo brackets that make up the arm were bought from amazon, as well as the MG996R servos. I used a 7.4V LiPo battery, but for some reason when the battery was fully charged it held about 8.4V instead. Since I haven't used the MG996R servos before, I struggled to power them from the 7.4 LiPo battery and I broke more servos than I needed to in the process. My solution was to buy a DC to DC voltage regulator. With this regulator I was able to provide a steady supply of voltage to the servos. The base design of this robot was designed on Inkscape.
For the MiniMaestro, the following ports go to these parts of the circuit:
GND -> GND
VIN -> 5V (Arduino Board)
RX -> Port 11
To keep it simple I glued a magnet on the end of the arm so that it could pick up other magnets. This is a very simple project that I feel beginners can use if they want to try something new. Hope you enjoy!
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