How to Make Metal Collecting Robot Using Arduino Controlled by Bluetooth

Hello friends in this Instructables i will show you how to make Metal Collecting Robot Using Arduino which is Controlled by Bluetooth and a phone that has an app for this control.

Have you ever thought of a way to remove the scrap metals on your backyard or lets say any place where do you think has metals?

I have a beach near by and i wanted to remove the metal objects that is found in the sand, the robot was designed mainly to collect the metal objects.

I wanted to make it a fun activity, well who doesnt like to operate robotic cars, Most of us do!

Keeping fun yet practial usage in mind i made this metal collecting robot, the parts for this robot body was built at home, if you didnt find the exact material you can also substitute with similar materials also.

I used 3 lithium ion batteries that wont run out and will assure you a very good backup.

The magnetic parts comes with adjustable height and according to your terrain you can adjust this also.

I have used the generic magnet, if you want more powerful magnet then you can go with neodymium magnets well that comes with a price!

Now since you have an basc idea of this project let me also tell you in short the controller part.

There are many applications that allows you to control this bluetooth robot car but i chose the most simple and easy to use one.

Well lets now hop in to the building of this project, i have explained almost everything in detail and like always there is an video tutorial given at the end of this project, dont miss to check that.

These are the required list of items to build this project

Arduino Uno from amazon

Bluetooth Module hc05

Magnets

Jumper Cables

Dual L293D Motor Control Shield

Battery holder 3x

Wheels

BO Motor

Nut and Bolt(metal/3d printed)

Cardboard

Hot Glue

Pen

Ruler

Paper Cutter

Few paper pieces

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This is the important part for the robot since this will hold all the electronics as well as the mechanism.

Out of plenty options i chose to use cardboard, Since it is easy to work with and the design can be flexible depending on the features.

As you can from the first image on this step that was the design that i made by myself for this project, You can either trace the same dimension on your cardboard and cut it with a paper cutter.

Considering the size of BO motor and its wheels this design was made, for ensuring compatibility you can measure the dimension of you wheels.

The front part has only one wheel and i will work on that part first, To make the wheel work freely i started by insering a shaft through the wheel.

Outside of this i placed an hollow tube, now this inner tube can freely rotatate inside this hollow tube.

After the front part workings are complete, we can proceed with the back part of the body.

Start by connecting the wheels to shaft of DC motor, repeat the same for the other dc motor also.

Use either the hot glue or the super glue to conenct the bo motor with the frame, i have marked the areas to which the bo motor will be connected.

Allow the glue to dry completely, Meanwhile we can proceed with the circuit part for this robot.

I have added a program for this robot project, start by connecting your uno board to computer via programming cable and then open the arduino ide.

Paste this code, select the proper type of board, make sure to check the port to which your board is connected and then click on the upload button.

Without any issue the program will be uploaded and if error comes it will be likely because of a missing driver, install it and try again and it will be uploaded.

After the program is done uploading we can proceed with the circuit, connect the motor shield on top of the uno and now we can build the connection as follows.

For the power supply 11v battery is connected to power the motor driver shield and motors, i have used 3 li-ion battries controlled by a switch(on/off) for this

2 DC motors are connected to the motor driver shield, Motor 1 and Motor 2 are placed on the left side, while Motor 3 and Motor 4 are on the right side.

Bluetooth Module (HC-05)

Its TX pin is connected to the Arduino RX pin, and its RX pin is connected to the Arduino TX pin whereas the VCC and GND are powered from the shield.

After the connections are complete we can install the components on frame and lets see how we can do that.

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There is no way in this project to test the circuit upfront!, Nothing to worry here since we have the right code and the right connections made we can expect the circuit to work without any errors.

To make the front part look a lot cleaner, i have folded the piece of cardboard to the shape of triangle and glued it to the shaft part as shown in the image.

To make the mechanism there is a plate to which 2 magents will be attached to the base part and to the top of this plate i will connect the bolt(screw) part.

If you dont have 3d printed part for this consider using metal version of that, it also works fine.

Even if you dont have option for that you can also use a new plastic syringe that comes with raising and lowering option and can replace all these mechanisms.

To make the robot look like a sci fi robot i added a red colored plastic frame by the side, this also prevents the parts of the robots to be exposed outside.

Finally add the screw type(nut/bolt) mechanism to the center part of the robot(front side).

I chose hot glue for this purpose, you can also do the same.

Make a note that the screw holder should be firmly attached to the body of the robot frame, since upon collecting more and more metal this part will undergo more load.

Using this is also easy as building this project, Start by installing any bluetooth controller on your andriod phone.

I did not try with apple device but for andriod device there are plenty of options available on the play store.

After you install the controller, turn on the robot and now turn on the bluetooth on your phone and connect to hc05 named device.

After the connection is succesfull, open the app and you may require to connect there also once again, do that ans you will be able to see the screen like i do.

Now you can move this robot to front, back, right and left.

To make the magnetic part work at its best considering the type of magnet i bought it 8mm close to the ground, if you are using neodymium you can keep the part raised higher.

Since we are using only 3 wheels you can expect different movements and also the 2 BO motor can help to cruise this robot in small terrains.

The 3 batteries will give you a great backup on continous usage also, This is all about this project, i expect you are willing to make one of these

And if yes you make it, let me know in the i made it section.

Here is a detailed working video of this project, you can check the build method of the frame and the mechanism.

Most of us may feels sort of confused at the mechanism setting up part, dont worry this video has shown all those steps clearly.

This was all about this project, if you have any questions or any concerns ask in the comments. Thank you.