Artificial Intelligence for Robotics
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Assembling the tracks

We start by assembling the track components. Grab the big triangular plates. The cut-out part goes in the back at the top, since that is where the motor and drive wheel goes. You will have one of two track configurations – one with either five small metal wheels, or, like me, a setup with four large plastic bogie wheels. I believe that the plastic wheels will be the default going forward. Each wheel goes into the smaller holes on the triangle piece – ignore the big holes. The wheels are held in place by the black hex bolts with bare shafts, and fastened with the nylon lock nuts provided. Leave the frontmost wheel off (or remove it later when we mount the tracks):

Next, we construct the drive wheels. Each drive wheel is made up of two sprocket wheels (with the rectangular teeth, a motor coupler (thick brass cylinder), three brass spacers (thin hexagonal hollow parts) and a triangular cap with four holes. Note that one of the sprocket wheels has a round opening and one has a hexagonal opening. The brass motor coupler likewise has a hexagonal end and a round end. The motor coupler runs down the center of the drive wheel assembly. Attach the three brass spacers and the triangular end cap to the sprocket wheel with the hexagon opening using small round-head screws and lock washers. Put the motor coupler into the hexagonal hole and attach with a larger round head screw. Put the other sprocket wheel on the spacers and attach with small screws. Repeat for the other drive wheel. You will notice the small holes in the motor coupler for set screws to be added later – make sure you can get to these holes. There are sets of holes on either side of the motor coupler. I had to disassemble one of my drive wheels to reposition the set-screw holes:

Attach the motor mounts (L-shaped bracket) to one of the robot base plates (largest plate with clipped corners) – both plates are identical. Use four longer screws and lock washers. Next, attach the motor to the motor mount using three screws. Now it gets exciting, as we can attach the two triangular track units at the side of the base plate to the upper pair of holes in the triangular drive plates, leaving the round corner for the motor to poke through. Attach the drive wheels to the motors by sliding the motor shaft into the coupler and attach with set screws (use the regular small round head screws).