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Arduino Nerf Tank

Makers love Nerf guns, but Nathan Li takes foam-based home security to a new level with his mini Nerf tank. Naturally there’s an Arduino Uno in there, powering the mobile dart launcher.

Scruffy lookin’ Nerf tank herder

This miniature roving robot, known as M.A.T. (Modular Arduino Tank), is beautifully built. Not only is it remarkably accurate, but the dart launching mechanism is a triumph of non-lethal weapon design.

Unlike the majority of Nerf mods out there, this tank doesn’t actually use any parts from a toy gun. Attached to the front of the dart turret is a pair of flywheel motors. These spin the flywheels in opposite directions, at a pretty fast rate. An arm mounted on a servo feeds a dart into the flywheels, which propel it at an impressive lick!

The next dart is gravity fed, and simply falls into place, making it quite a rapid firing micro tank.

Testing the tank

Li takes his tank through a series of batteries, all of which show impressive results. Accuracy is spot on, which isn’t easy with notoriously unreliable Nerf darts. A five-foot muzzle velocity test achieves a whopping 35MPH dart speed. The distance test sends foam projectiles an impressive 44 feet.

Then there’s a demonstration of some excellent grouping in the accuracy test.

It’s sparked up a whole conversation over on Reddit about how the firing mechanism can be modified. The flywheel thrower operates much like baseball launchers (and this dog toy, for example), which has really captured the maker community’s imagination. Shooting dried peas seems to be a popular idea. As does the idea of building in object detection for pest control.

The maker has shared his Arduino code on GitHub. You can also find the 3D print files and a build guide on Li’s website.

The post A remote-controlled Arduino Nerf tank appeared first on Arduino Blog.

Tank projects are great because while every tank design is the same in a fundamental way, there’s nevertheless endless variety in the execution and results. [Hoo Jian Li]’s 3D Printed Tank is smartly laid out and has an unusual tank tread that shows off some slick curves.

The tank itself is remotely controlled over Bluetooth with a custom controller that uses the common HC-05 Bluetooth radio units. The treads are driven by four hobby gearmotors with custom designed wheels, and run over an idler wheel in the center of the body. There isn’t any method of taking up slack in the track and a ripple in the top surface of the track is visible as it drives, but the tank is small enough that it doesn’t seem to mind much. STL files and source code is available on GitHub; unfortunately the repository lacks a wiring diagram but between the low component count, photos, and source code that’s not a show-stopper.

Tank treads see a lot of variation, from 3D printed designs for tracks that use a piece of filament as hinges to an attempt to use a conveyor belt as a tank tread for a go-kart. Some tank projects even eschew treads altogether and go for a screw drive.

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Building a rather rudimentary Arduino tank bot

arduino hacks, motor shield, playstation 2, ps2, Robot, robots hacks, tamiya, tank Commenti disabilitati su Building a rather rudimentary Arduino tank bot 

building-an-arduino-tankbot

The tank robot builds that we see are often quite complex. This lets them do great things, but makes the platform scary for beginners. Here’s a tank build that would be a great first project, especially if you’re more interested in the programming side of robotics than you are in the hardware itself. [Paul Bleisch] combined several different commercially available products to fabricate this Arduino-powered tank robot base.

Locomotion is provided by a double geared-motor module. This unit, the plastic wheels and treads, as well as the wooden mounting platform are all made by Tamiya. They cost very little and are already designed to work with one another. To this base he adds the Arduino and a motor shield which makes the connections dead simple. The black case on one end of the chassis holds four AA batteries which provide power for everything.

These components are all that’s really needed to start, but they provide no interactivity. So [Paul] picked up a used wireless PlayStation 2 controller. There’s a library (written by regular reader [Bill Porter]) that allows him to connect the receiver to the Arduino in order to pick up commands from the controller. He also plans to add an ultrasonic range finder to the build sometime in the future.

If you’re don’t need to do things the easy way you should consider fabricating your own tank treads.


Filed under: arduino hacks, robots hacks


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