Here are some pictures from my robot platform under developement. He doesn't haev a name yet.
There are pictures of the encoder disc and a wheel. The pattern is printed on a piece of overhead transparency material, then glued to a CD to provide a reflective surface. This fits perfectly inside an 8" lawn mower wheel:
This view shows the Hamamatsu sensor board and wheel mounted. They have since been changed to quadrature, with a second sensor added per board, but this should give the idea of how the mounting worked.
The body is composed of plywood platforms mounted on threaded rods. This guy will be 3 feet high. Probably too high, but the rods were half price. Here are the various levels of the body being painted.
The inspiration for this robot design is Lazlo from www.TheOneSpot.com (now defunct, if anyone knows where he has moved, please let me know). I am using plywood platforms, where he used plexiglass and had to reinforce his base with aluminum. (He seems to have moved on to a new design, I'm using his Lazlo v1.0 design.)
However, he had found some very good motors very cheaply (which unfortunately are sold out now, but I did get two of), and used his novel mounting method. He used a garage door pully has a bearing across from the motor. These pictures are of Lazlo -- NOT my bot.
These pictures were taken to show the head assembly. The first two give an idea of the body design.
