Building the robot

Since our self-balancing robot is based on the line follower, there is not too much to do in terms of building it. However, there are a few modifications we need to make. Most importantly we need to use more powerful motors to enable robust balancing, and we need a phone holder that sticks out far above the top of the robot for the telepresence functionality. There are also two new electrical components, an IMU for tilt estimation and an RC receiver to make it radio-controlled.

To prepare for these additions, you will first need to remove the PixyCam camera, the two driven wheels (if you have not been using the bigger motors yet), and the passive caster wheels from the robot.

Integrating motors and encoders

This robot needs a little more power to achieve robust balancing than the little motors that we used for the line-following robot can provide. For this robot, we are using 12V motors with a 19:1 gearbox and encoders with 64 counts per (motor) revolution...