Fully Autonomous Fire Fighting Robot (watch in HD)

Smokey the Bear (named smokey because of the original intent to use dry ice to put out the fire):

This is a PIC controlled fully autonomous fire fighting robot I built as my grade 12 computer engineering project. This bot is fully autonomous, meaning all movements are made based on sensor data, and does not run on a pre-programmed path. It is based on - and fully compliant with - the official Trinity College Fire Fighting Home Robot Contest rules, found here:
http://www.trincoll.edu/events/robot/

I designed this robot with the intent of bringing it to competition in coming years. The design allows for a relatively easy mod for the robot to use dry ice as the extinguishing medium, rather than the classic (and not very realistic) fan. I also have enough open ports for a sound activation switch, along with an extra SHARP distance sensor (allowing me to remove the time-wasting servo). I was recently accepted into UofW's computer engineering program, where I will hopefully learn some new design principles and new ideas to use in the new version. The ability to return to home base (start) after the candle is extinguished is also a feature I'd like to implement. The bot was programmed in MBASIC. The cost of all components use in the robot is $80-100. The LCD is around $20, the SHARP sensor is also around $20. The wheels are each about$10. The plexiglass and nuts&bolts are approx. $10-15. The chips and other ICs were about $10 all together.
Success rate:
This bot can successfully find and extinguish a candle approx. 8 out of 10 times without touching a wall, getting stuck anywhere, etc. The candle can be located in any corner of any room in the maze.

I will not be providing any plans or code, as I intend to use this robot for competition.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Fully
• Autonomous
• Fire
• Fighting
• Robot
• firefighting
• firefight
• firefighter
• fight
• fighter
• candle
• detection
• detector
• detect
• robotics
• computer
• engineering
• huron
• heights
• secondary
• school
• fan
• propeller
• propeler
• dry
• ice
• microchip
• pic
• mbasic
• basic
• programing
• programming
• language
• micro
• controller
• microcontroller
• smokey
• the
• bear

[sirpau1]

@PBRobotics Thanks :) I hope it will work. If the 'ice' melts fast enough and is also propelled by a fan, it should be fine. The fan of course would not be propelling air. All it would do is produce a small vacuum in the dry ice chamber to accelerate the CO2,

[PBRobotics]

Good job! Dry ice is a good idea; I don't recall seeing that before.