Introduction
The device's physical mechanism took care of the complexities of motion, which left the circuitry requirements simple. We required a single (albeit powerful)
motor, speed and direction control, and an on/off switch.
An Arduino Uno accepted potentiometer input and mapped it to a 5V output. This was fed to a SaberTooth I motor driver board, which ran our Pololu gearmotor.
We soldered a switch inline with the power cord so we could switch the device on and off while keeping it plugged into the wall.
Housing
The housing for the electronics was made from laser-cut 13/816" acrylic, and was designed to fit together without any metal fasteners, instead using puzzle-piece
like shapes. This reduced the chance of shorting out any important electronic components. The acrylic was bonded together with Loctite epoxy.
Code
Our Arduino code used was modified from the AnalogInOutSerial demo. We modified the code so that the motor does not turn when the system is first booting up.
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