With the combat mode the first thing we did was design our shell, we decided to go with ‘Ninji’ from super mario:
This was when he was 3D printed; he will be painted black and white in our spare time outside the lab. The black paint will also hopefully absorb some of the infrared so less bounces back and we’re a bit stealthier. The two red buttons at the top will be used to access our menu that will sit in the middle of his head.
Once the shell was designed, we had to attach it to the micromouse, the shell was designed to be ever so slightly bigger than the base so once placed it would sit nicely without the need for stuff like glue. Then new connections had to be made as the wires needed to be extended to allow the sensors to reach his eyes and arms. After all the new connections were made this was our shell design:
It is hard to tell from the image, but each sensor has colour coded wires just to make the whole thing easier to understand, and identify which wires belong where in case we have any sensor issues.