2019 Pacbot Competition

This robot was made for the 2019 Harvard Pacbot Competition in April, 2019 by members from Tufts Robotics Club including me. The goal of the competition was to build a physical "Pacman" that runs autonomously in an arena recreated according to the iconic video game. This was the first time our club enters this competition, and we were placed the 3rd among all teams.

I designed the base layer of the robot, which hosts a raspberry pi, an Arduino Mega, all the batteries, and the motors. I used stand-offs and zip ties to secure all the components from shifting during the robot's movement.

Building Process

CAD Assembly of Robot (SolidWorks)

The biggest challenge was fitting everything in a chassis that is enough to fit the competition requirement (7'' by 7'' by 4''). Since the software team wanted to fit both a Raspberry pi and an Arduino Mega onto the robot, I spent some time prototyping sketching and deciding where everything should go. Eventually, I came up with a 3-layer design that made use of space that are next to the motors and under the main plate. Each layer is connected with standoffs, which increase the stability while keeping the robot easy to assemble.

For future competitions like this one, I would like to work with the software team to see if it's possible to use smaller micro-processors, so that we can reduce the robot size significantly.