Robotics Car Project: Part 1 – How I Planned My Car’s Budget and Functions

About Me and the Project

Hi I am Satyarth Shree, a 17 years old aspiring robotics engineer who has joined a university named Lovely Professional University to pursue BTech in Robotics and Automation. I use platforms like Hashnode and medium to publicly document my robotics learning journey.
I have recently joined university and as a fresher I was instructed to complete a project by 21st of September by my professor. I had to make a robotics car as my project. The aim of the project is that I have to make a robotics car which can be controlled by a smartphone or a remote controller. This car has to stay inside a track and has to avoids obstacles in that track while moving towards the finishing point. The student whose car reaches the finishing line in the shortest amount of time with the least number of collisions with the obstacles while staying in the track wins and will be awarded the maximum number of marks.

My Decisions Regarding this Project

I have already explained what the robotics car that I will make has to do in the previous paragraph. Our teacher told us that we can either work solo or maximum in a group of four members for this project. I decided to work solo. There is primary one reason why I chose to go solo.
Let’s say I would have worked in a group then the two big benefits that I would enjoy are:
1. Low cost - In a group the money required to make the project would have been split up within the group members so each member will have to bear less cost.
2. Low working load - In a group members can decide which work will be done by whom so the workload significantly reduces.
These are indeed great benefits and most probably the reason why almost all of my classmates except few are working in a group.
On the other hand the biggest disadvantage of working solo are:
1. High cost - When working solo entire cost of the project has to be handled by a single person only therefore making the project very expensive.
2. Huge working load - All the task have to be performed by a single person therefore increasing the work load by multiple folds.
After carefully weighing the pros and cons of working in group and individually I decided to work solo because of one main reason and few other reasons related to it. The reason is that when I am working solo I get to own all the parts and components required to make the project. In a group all the people contribute money to purchase different components required to make the project so in that case none of the group member can fully utilize all the parts for as long as he/she wants in future. Let me explain. Let’s suppose three people worked in a group and completed this project together. They split up the cost required for the project to purchase different components. Since everyone has contributed to purchase different components so no one gets to fully own them and hence the group members have to decide how they will use the components in future after this project is completed. If after completion of this project one of the group members wants to work on a personal project to develop his/her own skills then it will be difficult for him/her to use all the components as the components are shared with other people also. But when I am working solo then all the parts I purchase belongs to me and me only so I can use them in future according to my convenience to make different kinds of projects.
So working in a group proves beneficial to me in short term as it reduces the expenditure required to make the project, but in a longer run working solo this time feels more advantageous as I will have the freedom to work on any project I want without anyone’s permission which is why I decided to go solo.

Budgeting and Planning Project Components

Before planning which components I need to purchase for my project I revisited the aim of the project which is:

Make a robotics car which can be controlled using a smartphone or a remote controller. We have to control and keep this car in a track while moving it towards the finishing line. The car should avoid obstacles placed inside the track without going outside the track.

The single most important feature that the car should have is that it should be controlled using a smartphone or a remote controller. I decided that I will make a car which can be controlled with my phone. Now I started researching to know more about how such a car can be made. While researching I stumbled upon the information mentioned below.

There are two ways in which a robotics car can be controlled using smartphone. One is through bluetooth and the other is through wifi. I got to know that Arduino doesn’t have built in features to connect to bluetooth or wifi. If I use Arduino then I have to purchase an extra wifi module which has to be used with Arduino to get connected to wifi. After searching for some more time I found out that there is a microcontroller named ESP32 which has built in bluetooth and wifi connecting capabilities so I decided to purchase it as there will be no need to purchase an extra wifi module which will reduce the expenditure. I decided to make a car which can be controlled over wifi as wifi has a longer range than bluetooth so it will be more convenient if the track is long. Here are the images of ESP32 that I purchased:

I purchased it from amazon. The link of this product is: https://amzn.in/d/2jn638V

I purchased a robotics car kit next as it would include most of the components required to make my project. The kit that I purchased included the following components:

It covered almost everything that I needed except a few components. The link of this product is: https://amzn.in/d/a328Irn. Here is the image of the kit:

It also included Arduino which I can use in the near future. The next issue was power supply to motors and ESP32. This kit included a 4 AA Battery holder. If I would have used alkaline batteries then they would have provided 1.5V each when they are fully charged and then the voltage would have dropped down considerably resulting in less power. After searching and trying to find information for some time I decided to purchase NiMH rechargeable batteries. Once purchased they can be used multiple times and also provide 1.5V at full charge and drops to 1.2V at lower charge but not below than that so I thought that they would be a better option. If 4 batteries are supplying 1.2V then the total output voltage to the motor driver would be 4.8V. Some of this voltage will get consumed inside the motor driver because of internal resistance and hence the output voltage received by motors will be even less than that. So I purchased a 6 AA battery holder and 6 NiMH rechargeable AA batteries to make sure that the power supply is sufficient. I also purchased a charger for the rechargeable batteries. Here are the images of the components I just talked about and their corresponding links:

NiMH Rechargeable AA Batteries

I purchased 6 such batteries (one 4 battery set and one 2 battery set).
4 Battery set: https://amzn.in/d/7Zsovae
2 Battey set: https://amzn.in/d/hV4XstS

6 x AA Battery holder

Link: https://amzn.in/d/2N3tM4h

NiMH Rechargeable AA Battery Charger

Link: https://amzn.in/d/cRmAXXi

I found out that is ESP32 gets more voltage than required then it might get damaged so I also purchased a step down buck converter which can be used to reduce output voltage to match the requirements of ESP32. I purchased two such buck converters. Here is the image:

Step Down power supply module (buck converter)

Link: https://amzn.in/d/2iAHuZq

I also purchased 22 AWG wires for slightly higher values of currents which might damage jumper wires and a wire stripper to strip wires before connecting. I haven’t yet purchased breadboard and multimeter which can also be considered as essential components required to build my project. I am planning for these two components right now.
According to the aim of the project I think these components are necessary to purchase which is the reason why I chose them.

What’s Next and Why This Project Matters

Since I have almost all the components ready with me now so I will start making my project. By the time next blog is posted you can expect that I would have most probably reached the midst of completion of this project. This project is not only something which will fetch me marks, it is a defining moment in my robotics learning journey. It is for the very first time that I am working on such a project so after it’s completion I will definitely improve and will move a step closer towards my dream of becoming a capable robotics engineer in the future. During the process of making this project I will learn how to assemble hardware components, how to resolve issues and how software and hardware interacts in the real world. I will share updates in the my next blogs related to the completion of this project. If you have any experience in working with electronic components then do share some tips in the comments section. I look forward to your continued support and guidance in my robotics learning journey.

Let’s Connect

My Github: https://github.com/Satyarth-Shree
My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/satyarth-shree-761357374/
My CodeWars: https://www.codewars.com/users/Satyarth-Shree
My X: https://x.com/BuildUnderdog
My Medium: https://medium.com/@satyarthshree45
My Portfolio: https://satyarth-shree.github.io/My-Portfolio/
To professionally contact me for internships, collaborations or similar opportunities click here: https://forms.gle/SH9bj1oJwqPtJtD26