Beer Rover | Devpost

Inspiration

Having a huge interest in robotics, we wanted to try to control a basic robot in an unusual way, so we decided to try and control a small rover via text message. Now we had a basic idea, we needed a purpose, and that purpose was obvious; to bring an ice cold can to our lazy hands.

What it does

The robot is controlled via text message. Anyone can text the reserved number a string of instructions to follow, and the rover will follow these commands. These commands are FORWARD, BACK, LEFT, RIGHT, LIFT and GRAB.

How we built it

One half of our team built the rover out of an arduino, a rover chassis, some plastic cutlery and a boat load of duct tape. The other half used a raspberry pi to build a script to receive texts, analyse them, and send the messages to the arduino.

Challenges we ran into

Our first problem was with the wifi. We had originally planned to allow an Alexa to send the text, using the SMS services to send a text via voice. However, connecting the alexa to the wifi proved difficult, so we decided to stick with a basic mobile. Our next problem we ran into was building the robot arm, with limited parts. After debating several models, we decided to throw caution to the wind and do what our team does best; IMPROVISE. Using some plastic knives, duct tape, hot glue, and a spring, we fashioned a makeshift claw that was capable of lifting light objects, albeit in a very macgyvered way.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

There are a lot of things that we are extremely proud of in this project, the first being the fact we could control a robot via a string of text commands. We are also proud of the fact we managed to fashion a claw out of nothing but household objects, duct tape and sheer determination.

What we learned

We learned that duct tape is an incredible thing. We also learned how to improvise in the face of adversity, how to receive SMS messages and process them, and how to run localhost over the web.

What's next for beerRover

We planned to implement subroutines, in order to make sending commands simpler. As well as this, the next is to implement a camera. As well as the obvious object detection, one of the things we touched on was facial recognition using emotion recognition software, to decide where to go based on the people in the room.