In order to keep myself busy and my skills sharp. I have decided to make an autonomous mobile robot. I wanted a sturdy chassis that could house many different components and support a fair bit of weight. I also wanted to have encoders so I could build closed loop control. And my most coveted feature is mecanum wheels.
For those of you that are not aware mecanum wheels have rollers that allow spin, thus eliminating the force of friction in one direction.
Because the rollers allow spin, if this wheel is turned forward it would actually travel diagonally, since the only grip it has is diagonal. By arranging four of these wheels together we are able to balance the friction forces and do some crazy stuff.
As the picture above shows a robot with four mecanum wheels can travel in any direction, including sideways and diagonally. Needless to say I am very excited to try them out.
So to accomplish all of this I bought the moebius robot chassis from moebius tech in china. The cost was about 115$ CAD, which is reasonable in my opinion. Here is a picture of the components, prior to assembly.
The kit is meant to go with the solution that the company provides, meaning you're meant to follow their instructions exactly and install an Arduino on there. This is why you see a very specific pattern of holes on the chassis. They are meant to mount the electrical components that the company provides. We are gonna go off the beaten path and install different components, so hopefully at least some of those holes will line up with the mounting holes of my electronics.
Part of my decision to buy this also comes from the material of the chassis. Aluminum is an amazing material to work with since it is light, easy to machine and doesn't rust. My chassis is anodized to be a stylish black, which I'm very happy with. If I need to add more hardware onto it in the future such as a robot arm, it will be strong enough to support the weight and also to attach securely.
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