Building the chassis

Our initial idea for the chassis was to use paper mache, however as andrew has already pointed out, we quickly found out that this was not an ideal material to use as it was too time consuming, weak and heavy. we then decided to use meccano as it would save a lot of weight and time. We began building a three wheeled model as we felt it would be the most suitable chassis for our buggy.

Andrew created the back of the chassis to hold the motors in place and i was left to do the front wheel. we also created a simple deck where the circuitry is to be stored.

Problems found with current chassis

1. while testing the buggy out we found that the front wheel has difficulty turning. This may be because the front wheel used is too heavy and creates too much friction, so to get round this problem i will try to change it with the smaller red wheel that was handed out.
2. the circuitry has difficulty staying on the buggy as it drives. to get around this problem i suggest two solutions. firstly we should create rails to hold the the components in place. secondly a lower platform could be formed using two struts parallel to the main strut. this would create extra space so for the battery pack.

Future plans

• While testing the buggy we found that using our current program (which tells the the buggy to turn by rotating the wheels in opposite directions) the buggy had difficulty turning, now this may be solely to do with the problems we are having with the front wheel however, If the front wheel isn't to blame we will have to program the buggy to turn by making one wheel stop and the other go. This will mean writing two separate programs and incorporating a switch.
• Calibrating the LDRs is going to be the biggest task, however it would be made much easier if we have a light source to light the paper track. so we will be attaching white led's to the underside of the buggy.