Sand-Leveling Robot

Inspiration

We turned to the internet to try to look at the basics of how land is flattened in the real world and replicate that to our smaller scale.

What it does

Our robot is meant to flatten out sand, only really considering the very fine sand that we will encounter during our showcase.

How we built it

We started with the basic kit, seeing how it traversed through the landscape, and tested what exactly the first step was towards improvement. We were initially thinking about having a simple snowplow as our front, but changed to a wide set of teeth for our front, seeing that it helped dissolve big sand piles while staying sturdy. We used pieces of aluminum sheet to act as our arms that would help hold the teeth. We also decided to move the snowplow attachment to the back of our robot and act not necessarily to push the sand but to glide over it to hopefully cover the tire tracks.

Challenges we ran into

We would rush a lot, which led to a lot of mistakes that would set us back even more than if we had slowed down and taken our time. We also had trouble creating an initial plan and vision to pursue, which left us uncertain about how to proceed. We also had some trouble adding attachments to the car without compromising the integrity of the frame and keeping the attachments structurally sound. We also had a lot of problems with our electrical components, like sensors not working.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of our being able to get our robot to traverse through the sand and and our implementation of our front bumper, which is an important aspect of the process.

What we learned

We learned that starting slow can be helpful and that having a plan is also important. We also learned that sometimes just getting started is what needs to happen for ideas to come.

What's next for Sand-Leveling Robot

Our Sand-Leveling Robot definitely has room for improvement. A big aspect that we were unable to implement this time around was motion within our snowplow and front bumper to better move the sand depending on its height. We could also do some improvements on the safety features since we did not really incorporate any.