A humorous look at many common mistakes made in building robots.


1. Forget to connect the battery

2. Put it all together and forget something.

3. Put the LED in the wrong way and wonder why it doesn’t work.

4. Dont use strong enough gearboxes.

5. Forget to connect the sensors and wonder why they dont work.

6. Install the motor drivers and find out that they aren’t powerful enough.

7. Get a bad circuit off the net and build it without first checking it out.

8. Use dead CMOS ICs.

9. When you dont have a part, you say this other part will do but it doesn’t.

10. Use similar resistor values when the values are very critical.

11. Linear regulators instead of switchmode regulators. Most robots have a limited power budget and the wasted energy of linears can be greater than 50% if a 12 volt system is the only power source on your array of sensor, micro ect., all want current from a 5 volt source.

12. Not prototyping enough.

13. Not enough research before you start to design the "super-mega-mux-board."

14. Taking giant leaps instead of baby steps.

15. Not seeking help before you spend 18 hours trying to understand something complex and arcane.

16. Not keeping your color codes straight.

18. Not setting up proper current limitation.

19. Leaving your tests unattended.

20. Letting your work bench pile up with cr*p.

21. Forgetting about your girlfriend in the next room for extended periods of trouble shooting.

22. Forget to connect power source grounds together.

23. Not calculate the current and burn something up!

24.Having a poorly planned robot that looks like a garbage dump …which most of the time doesnt work!

25.Starting a project without a primary goal.

 

Cast your vote for the top mistakes in making a robot.

Haven’t you ever said "Doh! I’ll never do that again!"? If you have , then that’s what we’re looking for. Send me and e-mail and tell me.