The Summer vacation has ended and work has resumed to normal level load, I thought of taking a break from the commitment of delivering a project, so i did not apply for the sponsored kit for this challenge. But I still can try building for challenge. That way, No pressure of delivering the project and I can call it quits if i cant. So, Over to the concept of Dockbot.
Aim is to build a concept of a robot that automatically plugs in the charging plug after a car has been parked. This project is not gonna be serious, no custom PCB and I will try to use whatever I have on hand. To start with is the detection of the car stop and location of charging slot. This will be done using ArduinoQ and OpenCV to identify the location using a camera. After the location is identified, I will use a gantry robot made from repurposing my old 3D Printer - AnyCubic mega i3 which i bought in 2013. The motors, lead screws, hotbed all worked well before i put it in storage, just that the hot-end is not working correctly. And the mechanical stability of this gantry is rock solid. I had thought of using the 3D printer as a laser cutter but then I realized in my home, I do not have space to handle the ventilation requirement. So i dropped it. But now, I may be able to give the old workhorse a new purpose.
Here is a concept video made using AI. Ignore the hallucinations.
Final Notes:
Truth be told, I haven't researched on whether Arduino Q can reliably handle the object detection, but I do have a backup SBC just in case. I did spend some time learning about Arduino Q in the On the Line Challenge so hopefully, it will not go to waste.
