T-shirt launcher robot

Bill:  Wanted to take a minute to thank you for your video on controlling a robot with a RC controller.  I teach a high school robotics team and with your video as a foundation, we were able to implement a controller for our T-shirt launcher project.

We used the Flysky RC controller, iA10 receiver, and Arduino Mega with the iBus library.  We had to implement some failsafe code ourselves for safety as we discovered accidentally that if a data connection wire from the receiver detached from the arduino, no failsafe was generated (or possible from the receiver) and we could have a runaway robot.  As this robot is 100+ pounds and will do 5MPH, it's important that it shuts down on loss of comms.  We achieved the loss of comms failsafe by monitoring the incoming packet counter and if it goes stale, we shut the robot down. And, for loss of radio signal the RC controllers built in failsafe system was also implemented.

Our motor controllers are leftover FIRST robotics controllers that take normal (servo) PWM so we used the servo library to communicate back to them.  We needed and used all 10 channels of the RC controller.  So far, it works great.

Really appreciate your video that effectively gave us an affordable radio control method with good range.

The pneumatics of the robot were designed using GGDT software.  We can put a T-shirt over the bleachers (probably over the gym itself) with relatively low pressure and a small launch chamber.  For our needs in a school gym, the problem was turning it down enough to not hit the rafters.  The on-board compressor charges a storage tank to ~50psi.  The launch chamber is regulated to 30-35psi and it will do 10 shots on a single charge. 

Robot named, in memory of, Maude 🙂

Maiden video below: