Joel LawrenceJustin Moses

 Sphero tm ball robot controlled by iPhone/iPad  Commercially available

 Movement is controlled by internal mechanisms ◦ Counter-pendulum ◦ Gyroscope ◦ Internal rotor  Omnidirectional  Can traverse many types of terrain  Have no top – bottom orientations  Sealed off from the environment

 Cannot stop quickly  Cannot overcome obstacles greater than the radius of the sphere  Hard to have a zero-turn radius (hard to turn about the z axis)

Use solenoids!

 Allow for greater control of movement  Robot can stop sooner  Robot has the potential to jump to overcome obstacles

 Weight  Cost  Open to the environment  High power consumption

 Solenoids use inductance to control a plunger  Can be push, pull, or push-pull  Usually have springs to automatically retract or extend after turned off

 Uses solenoids with plungers extending from the shell  Only two rows to show proof of concept  Built inside a hamster ball

 Use a cylinder instead of a sphere  Use the body of a pen to stop the plungers  Everything else stays the same

 TI MSP430 as the microcontroller  Either a TIP31 or a MJE3055 BJT  v rectifier IC  Standard 120 Vac to 12 Vdc wall plug  Coded using Code Composer Studio

 Used LEDs to indicate which solenoid should be activated  Original 2N3904 transistors failed