What if we could unleash a swarm to help us keep settings like public parks, amusement parks, and zoos clean? Just deploy them and rest assured the job will be done. They could also be used to rove and make sure trash levels don't exceed a certain threshold. That not only helps with cleanliness but improves the smell and air quality of any place fortunate enough to have our lovable robot crew.
That's what Wall-S attempts to be. A self-driving mobile robot designed for autonomously patrolling a region and keeping it clean. The name came from the lovable robot WALL-E. The s is a play on words that is meant to sound like the name but stand for sustainability :).
The project would entail:
- Custom designed and manufactured parts
- Motors for travel and trash process
- Camera for navigation and object detection Optional:
- Web interface to see the status of all the robots
- Other ways of communicating with the robots, like on-demand sms status requests
- Camera Input: Raspberry Pi w/ 1080p Webcam
- Messaging software: ImageZMQ (Python)
- Hardware/motor control: Arduino
- Web App: MERN Stack
Wall-S was a big group effort spearheaded by Brenton Jackson, David Krasowska, Tyler Kocmond, and Cooper Stephen Sanders.
Lots of credit goes to David (who really helped think about the electrical system, communication, and worked with me incorporating all the software), Tyler (who worked tirelessly creating designing and 3d printing the body the whole weekend) , and Cooper (who always came up with great proposals seemingly effortlessly in all subjects). We were ambitious and made tons of progress despite numerous setbacks (mostly surrounding hardware and material access). The fully realized, working robot wasn't completed during the time, but was a great starting point for improvement.
Thanks to the RoboTech organizors, mentors, and sponsors!
*If there is anything unclear or could be better worded, please make an issue!