Muribot Robotic Educational Platform

Here's a look at how I assemble my work, I do 99% surface mount components, usually 0402 capacitors and resistors, leadless packages and smaller BGAs. All without a scope ;).

Here's a look at my setup, it's just a simple rework station and an ESD mat.

A bare PCB, the one picture is a A04 revision.

Here is the same PCB with the ICs, USB port, and Power switch

And the same PCB with all the capacitors and resistors added.

A isometric shot after adding the 8 IR/Light sensors

The completed PCB with the motors and rechargeable battery

The battery and motors in their housing, and...

The completed unit!

Loading the bootloader firmware

Loading the encoder module firmware

And loading the diagnostic software! This unit is ready to go through final testing and QA!

I've done a lot of work on the Muribot, it started off as a project I finished back in August 2011 as MINI Mouse, if you'd like to learn more about the origins and progress of this project over the years, these are great to read (as long as you can handle my writing style)

9/2011 - Introduction and Muribot's Predecessor, MINI Mouse
9/2011 - Initial Kickstarter and MINI Mouse v2 design
10/2013 - MINIMouse becomes Muribot
10/2013 - Muribot Alpha vs The Competition
2/2014 – Alpha PCBs sent out
2/2014 – Alpha PCB Gerber Viewer Screenshot
3/2014 – 3D Printed Bracket Version A
6/2014 – Website Launched
6/2014 – First pricing and failing kickstarters
6/2014 – 3D Printed Case, Backer Rewards 1.0, International Shipping, 3D Printing vs Injection Molding, PCB Production, Component Sourcing, Assembly, and Reward Delivery
7/2014 – Beta Assembled, Magnetometer Added, and Muribot API starts taking shape
8/2014 – Beta Bugs :(
8/2014 – Bug Fixes :)
9/2014 – Bug Fix Details, Hardware PWM implemented, and some notes on Battery Life
9/2014 – DEMO VIDEO (Very bad, I'm sorry!)
10/2014 – A02 PCBs Picture
1/2014 – Free Upgrades and Oversampling
2/2015 – First look at the production version
2/2015 – Production Case Picture
3/2015 – Backer Rewards Finalized
3/2015 – Encoder Firmware and PC software on github!
3/2015 – Discovering the From1+

This is my initial entry, I'm not going to copy all the updats from tumblr so if you're curious to see the projects history prior to 3/21/2015. I've decided to use Hackaday as a sounding board for this project because I'm quite proud of my platform and want to show it to you; and I love Hackaday, so it just seemed natural.

As of 3/21/2015 the project is completed I'm just tying up loose ends with suppliers and manufacturers to make sure I can handle a variety of quantities from low to high volumes. May not be necessary but more a just-in-case thing.

I'll be grabbing an DSLR camera with video capability to get some real promotional video for Muribot. Very soon I'll be sending out a press release to a bunch of blogs and websites, and then shortly thereafter I'll be launching the Kickstarter!!!

Muribot has really come together over the past few months and it's almost taken a life of its own, if you're interested in running an article on Muribot please send me a message!