Yassin Lahrime, CpE 2026 yassinl@vt.edu
Phillip Bozay
IN PROGRESS
A robotic sensing platform made with affordable off the shelf components. Meant for exploration, disaster relief, telemetry, and modularity.
- Strengthening PCB prototyping
- electrical design
- sensor data management
- digital signal processing
- PID tuning
- modular electronic design
- rapid prototyping.
- scoping and planning phase
- source parts required for project. ideally locally in the interest of keeping affordable and shipping quickly.
- rough prototyping
- iterate on design
- testing and validation
- project finalization
- demo final prototype
The goal is for this rover to be affordable and readily deployable. Documentation is also a high priority for the sake of demonstrating educational value added and reproducibility in future automation and robotics efforts.
- keep a digital engineering notebook for datasheets, design notes, and testing data.
- 2 x 12 V dc motors ($30)
- 2 x driving wheels + 1 caster wheel ($10)
- 4 x 18650 cell ($10)
- integrated BMS PCB ($10)
- network enabled mcu with network connectivity (50$)
- initial prototype can be made from rough materials / scrap polymer ($0)
- final prototype can be 3d printed with PLA and modeled in fusion 360 ($10)
total estimate: $100
- rough prototype: 3/9/26
- initial testing day: 4/15/26
- 2nd iteration: 3/18/26
- validate final prototype: 4/9/26
- final deliverable demo day 4/22/26