2018 Building your Ambot

Building your Ambot

Parts:
- 1x body plate
- 2x motors, with 2 wires attached to each motor with 2x wheels
- 1x ESP8266 NodeMCU v2 Devboard
- 1x NodeMCU motor shield
- 1x jumper
- 1x plastic egg (used as skid plate)
- 1x 4xAA battery case
- 1x servo
- 1x laser
- 1x small foam square
- 2x dupont connector wires
Also needed:
- 1x USB cable for connection to ESP during configuration
- 4x batteries
- 1 small screwdriver
- markers

2018 Amazing Robot Assembly Instructions
- - Skid Plate:
    - Glue Skid Plate (egg) to Body:
  - Battery Pack:1
    - Glue Battery Pack to Body
      - Batteries should run across the body, not from front-to-back.
      - Be sure to center the battery pack very carefully so that it is flush with the body plate on the sides!
  - Motors:
    - Glue Motors to Battery Pack & Body
      - Place motors so that “solid color” wire is “Up”: Place Blue or Green on Left; place Brown or Orange on Right.
      - Works best to place a thin layer of hot glue on battery pack and body where motor will make contact, then quickly attach motor
      - Attach at an angle, with axle not touching battery pack and body!
      - Place the motors carefully so that they are parallel to each other and to the centerline of the bot!
      - The beauty of using hot glue for this: if you mess up, carefully pry off the motor, remove the glue, then reglue it again, better!
  - Jumper:
    - Insert Jumper onto Motor Controller, shunting Vin and Vm pins:
  - Motor Controller:
    - Glue Motor Controller to Body (blue headers facing toward back):
  - Wheels:
    - Carefully press the wheels onto the motors
    - If you press too hard and the motor becomes unglued, remove the glue residue before re-gluing!
  - ESP8266:
    - Insert ESP8266 into Motor Controller
      - Carefully insert the brain into the motor controller, aligning the “wifi antenna” markings at the outer edge of the two boards.
      - The USB port will be pointing out over the blue headers
  - Motor Wires:
    - Attach Motor wires to Motor Controller:
      - *** WARNING ***
        The joints where the wires are connected to the motors are weak.
        DO NOT put any pressure on those points.
        DO NOT stress the joints by pulling the wires!
      - Carefully straighten a bit of the coiled wire away from the motor.
      - Loosen the four screws above “A-/A+”, “B-/B+”, and “VIN/GND” a bit.
      - Insert the wires from “Motor A” into A- and A+, and the wires from “Motor B” into B- and B+, and tighten the screws.
        
        Place the colored wire in “-” and the whited wire in “+” (it can work otherwise– you just have to adjust things in your code!)
  - Battery Pack Wires:
    - Attach Battery Pack wires to Motor Controller
      - Using a fingernail, bare a bit more of the wire
      - Insert the red wire from the battery pack to VIN and the right wire from the battery pack into GND, and tighten the screws. (See previous picture!)
  - Servo:
    - Attach Control Horn to Servo (centered, facing forward)
      - Place the control horn on the servo without the screw, and carefully rotate the control horn.
      - Find the extremes, then move to “Center”.
      - Without turning the servo from center, remove and replace the control horn so that it points “ahead”
      - Screw in carefully! DO NOT LOSE THE SCREW!!!
    - Glue Servo to Body:
  - Laser:
    - Glue Foam square to back of Laser:
    - Glue Laser to Control Horn (via foam):
  - Servo Wiring:
    - Attach Servo wires to Motor Controller Pin 5 (Orange = D, Red = V, Brown = Ground.) Some motor controllers have the pins in a different order; the laser wires can be carefully removed and reordered from the connector.
  - Laser Wiring:
    - Attach Laser wire to Motor Controller 5V connector: White = Vin, Black = G