This was one of my first machines,the time when i had no idea about interfacing microcontrollers, blowing parallel ports, serial data transfer........Incidently my first ever entry to a robot competition.Unfortunately I have only a single scanned snap of it.

Here are the details:

What robot911 had to do:
Why robot 911?....It had to traverse a track ,kind of an F1 track with alot of curves.There was a load [around 250gms] placed right in the middle at some point of the track. The machine had to pick up the load [no pushing dragging,it HAD to lift it], go to a side dock and PLACE it there.Since this had to be done fast and quick ,with two machines racing at the simultaneously, it looked like an emergency ,so the 911....hehe.

Drive System
The basic steering system worked in a similar way as a battle tank configuration.One motor on each side connected directly to the wheel.
The motors were geared down to 60 RPM at 12V.The machine was wired, ie i had a control box in my hand with switches through which i controlled the machine.

Lifting Mechanism

This was the best part in constructing the machine.Ever heard of 5 1/4 [5 quarter] inch floppy drives...The ones that used rather oversized floppy disks...my college had a ton of them lying around...some permissions here and there and i get a hold of them.....here's what those disk drives contain

• 1 nice 1/8th step....Stepper Motor
• a beautiful guide mechanism [which moves the reading head] .i used this for the lifting mechanism on 911
• 2 to 3 pairs of IR sensors
• A DC motor

There's even more stuff in it...but the above stand out.

If you look more closely at the pic , I connected the guide rods and the head to a framework of Mecanno pieces.A Low RPM ,about 10 RPM motor was used to move the head up and down with a string......[if you were thinking about a Forklift,well that was my inspiration]

The Control Box
Sorry no pic...but heres an illutration:

• Two toggle switches controlled each motor[one for each motor]
• One toggle switch was used to control the up/down motion of the Lift Mechanism

Thats's all .

Questions
Please feel free to contact me if you have any queries.You can use the "Contact Me" page or mail me at gerryseq(at)rediffmail.com