The Final Push

For the final circuit we needed to include 3 things: the motors, the reed switches and the picaxe.

We made the circuit on a breadboard for easy of construction and modification in the event of a mistake being made.

Bellow is the partially constucted circuit. The reed switches are simply plugged into the board as opposed to being on extended wires. This was purely so we could see their position clearly whilst we were still configuring the layout off the breadboard.



The final circuit has both reed switches on elongated wires in order for the sensors to be postioned on the chassis closer to the ground and therefore closer to the magnetic strip.



This photo shows how the circuit is placed on the chassis. The breadboard itself creats a cover for the picaxe and motor controller. The reed switches have not yet been perminantly sealed in place on the front of the buggy.

Prototyping and Building the Chassis

In order for the vehicle to do anything we must find a way of holding all the components together on a chassis.

There are multiple factors that must be taken into account such as weight, strength and thickness.



With our prototype we used a card base however it was instantly clear that card was not strong enough to support the circuitry. It did however give us some idea of what size was needed and what shape was best.

With card ruled out as a usable material the realistic choices were down to acrylic, wood (such as plywood) and metal (such as thin aluminium)

In the end it was decided that thhe chassis would be built from a thin aluminium due to the advantage in strength whilst not comprimising on the weight. A hole was added where a brass runner was placed that would mean the buggy is held up at the front.