My backyard is filled with clotheslines, so I decided to create
an aerial ropeway that could measure the length of a rope. The
ropeway has two ultra-sonic sensors - one for each direction.
This allows the ropeway to stop before it hits an object. The
ropway is controlled from a PC with the Bluetooth aerial ropeway
remote. Below you will find a description of the remote as well
as building instructions for building your own aerial ropeway.
Pictures and video
Front
view
Side
view
Another
side view
Another front
view
Detaching the
wheels makes it
easy to place the robot on a rope
Aerial ropeway remote
The
Aerial ropeway remote is a Bluetooth remote. It
is made with C++ builder and my C++
communication library. The remote allows you
to:
Set the front and rear sensor as
well as the motor port.
Set a sonar limit - so the aerial
ropeway stops before it hits an object.
Chose which sensors to update
View sensor values centimetres
or inches
Set the motor speed
Please note
that if the sonar limit is set to zero the movement
buttons will simply move the robot back and forth.
Also note that updating sensors over Bluetooth
involves latency - so updating both the length
and sonar sensor will slow down the refresh rate
and therefore the precision of the sonar limit
(i.e. how close the robot gets to the object).
Below you will find building instructions
for building the aerial ropeway. Click on the image and a pop-up
window with the instructions will appear. Alternatively you can
download the Ldraw-files.
