New robot chassis

For some reason, I’ve always wanted to build a robot with tracks, and I’ve lusted after the Tamiya tank tread kit at SparkFun. So, when I scored $40 of credit on their recent Free Day, I bought it and the relevant accessories.

It was pretty easy to assemble - took an hour or two spread over a few evenings.

I built it in the low-speed/high-torque configuration. Since low-speed is really actually pretty low-speed, I’m not going to worry about pulse width modulation for the drivers; I think just a straight on/off is fine. For an idea of the speed, here’s a bit of video with a cat shown for scale:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QR0RnFN2S4

This project falls squarely in the “hobbyist” category, vs. “engineering” - by which I mean, I saw some technology that looked cool so I built it; figuring out what it’s going to do is secondary. I’m thinking of repurposing Clara’s now-unused DVD remote to steer it, for starters.