Making the Battery

R2D2

Ever since I can remember, I always dreamed about building robots and working with Artificial Intelligence, I imagined I would fly space shuttles like those on Star Trek or Star Wars, and that I could become a Jedi. I remember always sword fighting all my friends and trying to unlock my dominion over the force. As I grew up, I quickly discovered that none of these things could be accomplished easily.

However, one day when I was about 13 years old, I woke up and I had this vision, this idea of grandeur, I was convinced that I was going to build an R2D2, but as I had very little knowledge of electrical engineering and programming, my plan quickly stumbled apart.

But do not despair, over the past decade or so, I have been developing my abilities in robotics. During High School, I took on the role of Lead Software developer for our FTC robotics club, and I later graduated from UT with a Computer Science degree. And I now work as a software developer at SparkCognition and AI company, so I think I'm on track to fulfill my childhood dream. So what I plan to do next, is to take you guys alongside me on this journey to create my own fully autonomous R2D2, because I believe it's really important to not give up in our childhood fantasies, I think that one of the big differences between kids and adults, is that most of the time kids have not yet learned to be afraid of failure, and when they dream, their minds soar. And we as adults often shy away from our goals because doubt is our greatest enemy, and we are terrified of attaining greatness.

So if you only take one thing away from my entire blog, I want it to be the following thing. Remember everything that you as a kid, aspired to become. And if you are not already there, determine the steps necessary to get there, it's never too late to start. I realized this when I was talking to a friend of mine last week and I think it's crucial to our development as individuals. if you never need some inspiration I recommend the following book. The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday.

Now enough of the philosophy lecture, and let's get to the R2D2. So first we need to take care of the brains of the robot, I mean how is it going to function if it has no juice to run on? 

To overcome this, I bought a 12V, 5000mAh 60WH Battery Pack from teneryg.com I liked this battery because it's recyclable, and not too cumbersome, plus it's got a nice rectangular shape so it's easy to fit inside the R2D2. And of course, what kind of cool robot would this be, if it's not good for the environment. Therefore, I decided to build a solar-powered battery charger. The whole system is very simple, it consists of a simple circuit, a solar panel, the battery itself, and a diode.

 (My battery it only lasts about 3 hours before I need to charge it again. Future note to self for v2, buy a bigger battery, or more or them and connect them in parallel.)

Creating this solar charger for my R2D2 was not too complicated, and I am by no means an electrical engineer, so please forgive my sloppy attempt at soldering cables together. I took a clear plastic box, and drilled out 2 tiny holes on the sides, in order to feed the power and ground cables into my circuit and to be able to connect my battery to them. The whole idea behind this is that the solar panel is self-contained and weatherproof (save like a tornado or Armageddon), and since I used to the solar panel as the lid for the plastic box, I wanted everything to stay concealed inside and free from the inclement weather of Texas.

I used a 3M glue sticks, and some hot glue, to anchor down the solderless breadboard to the plastic box. 

After this, I made a super simple circuit, where I have the ground and power cables from my battery, connected through the breadboard. I then took a diode to connect the battery input power cable to the + row on the breadboard as you can see in the picture. The diode is crucial, because it prevents backflow from the battery into the solar panel, as I only really want the current to flow into my battery. Otherwise, we get a fire :)

The solar panel power and ground cables were too short, so I extended their lengths, by soldering them to female-to-male breadboard cables. In order to avoid more soldering, I then connected them to other male-to-female cables and plugged in the other end into the breadboard.

Alright, so the first step is done. We now have a solar-powered battery charger. The next step is to attach a battery regulator to stop the battery from charging once it's down and to prevent any explosions from happening. That would not be fun. Because the current drawback with my design is that I need to set an alarm for about 8 hours of full sun exposure, in order to fully charge my battery. (I bought it, but it has not yet arrived, so hopefully, I will attach it soon)

Well, stay tuned for my next posts, where I will go into more detail about the progress I am making on the R2D2. I hope you enjoyed this brief introduction to my project.