How to Build a Simple Raspberry Based Device?

Every gotten carried away by one of those sci-fi movies and wanted to build a robot on your own? Not sure about you but we definitely have! It is the same drive that has brought us here to explore the farthest possibilities of technologies like IoT, Big Data, analytics and more. Today, we have a very interesting DIY post that will allow you to live your childhood dreams of building a robot. Yes, with the Raspberry Pi, you can now build from scratch, we repeat, from scratch your very own robot that you can flaunt among your friends. Let’s dive in without much fluff!

This Raspberry Pi-based robot is ideal for a beginner that will also take you through smaller levels of complexities, allowing you to learn a lot of things on the way. This project requires you to work on Python and sensors to build a robot that can actually detect objects and avoid them.

Materials Required

For this project, you will need the following materials:

• Raspberry Pi B-/B or 2
• Basic computer peripherals like mouse, keyboard and memory card
• 1 geared DC motor
• 1 IR sensor
• 1 robot chassis and wheels
• 1 L293D driver board
• 1 Caster wheel
• 1 9V battery, connectors
• 1 push button
• 1 Resistor (220R)
• 1 Breadboard
• 1 Double sided tape
• Male to female and female to male jumpers

The Logic Behind the Setup

Being a beginner’s project, there is not much innovation you can bring in to this adorable robot that you are about to build. With Python and sensors, you can add the avoidance functionality to your robot and let it conveniently detect the presence of objects and hurdles and autonomously decide to avoid the objects. The two InfraRed sensors work on detecting objects within a range of 5 to 6cms. When the sensor detects an object and sends out a low signal and when there is no object, it sends out a high signal. The sensor modules also have two IR LEDS to receive and transmit signals. When there is an object nearby, it’s surface reflects the IR which is received by the IR LED, which in turn sends out a low signal to notify the presence of the object.

These sensor modules are again connected to the working pins of Raspberry Pi. Since the Raspberry Pi uses Python scripts, it immediately works on the instruction when the LED transmitter sends out a low signal. When the scripts receive the low signal, they immediately instruct the DC motors to change their direction to reverse to avoid hitting the object.

Besides, when you turn on the robot, the Raspberry Pi connected to the L239D driver board instructs the DC motor to propel the robot forward. To make the robot work seamlessly, you have to do a bit of a coding and work on a few complex wirings. To help you make things simpler, we have shared an entire post dedicated to its development. From wiring to coding, you can find all the resources you need here.

Once you’re done, do comment your experiences and let us know about your journey of building your very own robot.