Arduino
The DFRobot Pirate chassis is a built of aluminium and is a really robust (and heavy!) Robotics Platform
 
 
The DFRobot Pirate platform is a robust system made from aluminium and having 4 motors, gearboxes and wheels. It comprises a box-section main body that can house the battery pack and provide mounts for components and then an upper level plate that can support a directly mounted servo (eg. for our full-sizePan & Tilt assembly) as well as numerous sensors.
 
With its 4 motors it has a very powerful drive that can take it over obstacles, but it will need a good battery pack to operate. We recommend using a pack of 5  AA Energizer Extreme Rechargeable batteries as these will last a good length of time and are easily recharged.
 
Our full size Pan & Tilt assembly can be mounted directly into the top plate and allows adding sensors for Light Following (as in our example) or Ultrasonic sensors as shown above with the Dagu Magician.
 
The DFRobot Pirate also includes 3 mounting brackets for InfraRed (IR) Obstacle detectors, 2 of which are included with our complete kit.
 
The photo to the left shows the complete kit available in our shop comprising:
  • DFRobot Pirate chassis
  • Arduino Uno
  • H-Bridge Motor Driver
  • 2 x InfraRed obstacle detectors
  • Full size Pan & Tilt assembly
  • Mini-breadboard for mounting on the Pan & Tilt
  • Large breadboard for adding other components and sensors
  • Wires, Resistors, LEDs, Light sensors, Tilt sensors, etc.
Demonstration programs
  • Sketch Robot01 simply tests the robot moving forward, backward, spin left, spin right
  • Sketch Robot02 adds PWM to set the speed and IR obstacle sensors to avoid walls and other obstacles
  • Sketch Robot03 also uses PWM for speed control and demonstrates this robot moving around to find the closest light source until the IR sensors detect an obstacle, then moving to avoid collision. The Pan & Tilt mechanism is used to track the light and the robot follows the direction pointed to.