Kardbot is a is a simple plug, program and play (PPP) robot.

It is an easy beginners, and affordable, robot without the hassles of soldering, using toxic glue and understanding schematics. Kardbot was inspired by variations of "Servo Walker" at Instructables site.

Just a few parts are need to create Kardbot such as a microcontroller, a couple of micro servos, battery, paper clips and some corrugated cardboard.

Only tools needed are a ruler, pen and a good scissor.

Step 1: Construction

Kardbot body is made from an 8 inch by 2 inch corrugate card board from a used display board.

The cardboard is sturdy enough to hold components and flexible enough to bend.

Two rectangular holes are made at the end of the cardboard where the servos will be inserted.

The front part of the body is angled upwards. This helps with the robot motion.

Any microcontroller can be use. For this Instructables a nodemcu ESP8266 is the brain.

Two micro servos are use for the legs with paper clips attached. Each servo has three cables - ground, power and signal. The servos signal pins are attached to pin D2 and D4 of nodemcu.

Two paper clips are inserted into the servo horns and shaped into legs.

A 3.7 volt lipo battery from an old toy powers Kardbot. For small robots like Kardbot a lightweight battery is preferred to keep the robot weight as light as possible.The battery is plugged to the VIN and ground pins. Note the battery red cable is the positive side that plugs to the VIN pin on the microcontroller.

The servos and battery are attached to pins on the microcontroller.

The microcontroller and battery are duct taped to the top of the robot frame.

Step 2: Programming Kardbot

The nodemcu microcontroller needs to be programmed in order to make the robot servo move and walk.

The nodemcu used in this Instructables is an over kill for this simple robot however the nodemcu is inexpensive and can be used for building advance robots. Sensors and even internet of things can be used with the nodemcu.

Kardbot is programmed using free Arduino software version 1.6 from site https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software.

The microcontroller is plugged to a PC via the micro usb port and the code below is uploaded.

There are many good articles in Instructables on using Arduino with nodemcu ESP8266.

Kardbot uses the program code from Instructables site https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software. A few modifications were made to reference the servo pins and the ESP8266 nodemcu microcontroller.

Code :

#include

#include Servo frontservo, backservo;

char forward[] = {60,100,100,100,100,60,60,60};

void setup()

{

frontservo.attach(D2);

backservo.attach(D4);

frontservo.write(90); //reset servo backservo.write(90); //reset servo

}

void loop()

{ for(int n=0;n<4;n++)

{ frontservo.write(forward[2*n]);

backservo.write(forward[(2*n)+1]); delay(300);

}

Step 3: Conclusion

Once you have successfully created a Kardbot you can research on how to control the robot remotely via wifi or add sensors for a more intelligent robot.

Have fun creating your Kardbot!