Author Topic: Remote Controlled Paintball Robot (Read 8869 times)

barrio_boy_08 · « **on:** May 26, 2009, 09:00:00 PM »

Hello I'm really new at this but I wanted to get some help on a little project that I have in mind. I want to be able to build a remote controlled paintball robot. Pretty much my idea is having a r/c car a paintball turret mounted to the top of it. I want the car to move left and right and forward and back, also I want to paintball gun to move up and down and left to right and also fire. I wanted to also be able to mount a mini camera on it to see where I'm going and shooting. The purpose of this is to be taken outside whenever i go play paintball with my friends so I can do surprise attacks. What i need to know what all would I need to build it? Would a 6 channel remote control transmitter be my best bet for example like this one, E-Flite 6 Channel CCPM Radio Transmitter Receiver Gyro which is being sold on ebay. I want to know everything I would need like what kind of servos and motors and well everything!!! Thank you!!!

SmAsH · « **Reply #1 on:** May 27, 2009, 12:35:49 AM »

well...
it all depends on the terrain, speed, strength and accuracy you want for the turret.
an rc car/truck could work for the main chassis with pan/tilt servos with brackets mounted on them...
you will most likely need to make a custom bracket to hold the gun to the servo.
you will also need a firing mech to pull the trigger.
so tell us, what are the specs of the gun? weight, size, fire rate?
and how fast do you want it to go and what terrain?

barrio_boy_08 · « **Reply #2 on:** May 27, 2009, 11:22:45 AM »

well the terrain is woods pretty much so I want it to handle the bumps and stuff.
for the gun I'm still looking at different ones, I'm still looking for a light one that maybe is electric and if not I' looking for one that is light good and cheap. The rate of fire I'm guess I want it to be at least 5 balls per second.
I want it to be able to drive away pretty fast but without losing control

barrio_boy_08 · « **Reply #3 on:** May 27, 2009, 12:15:12 PM »

I want it to be something like this

I found it on this fourm, http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/showthread.php?t=1424

SmAsH · « **Reply #4 on:** May 27, 2009, 03:10:38 PM »

well, first off you will probably want to find a decent quality r/c car that has a lower center of gravity
ie. a monster truck or something like you posted..
this will help it take on the weight of the paintball gun without tipping around corners.
to the paintball side of things, you may have to strip down the paintball gun to conserve weight and space.
but i haven't played paintball yet so im not sure on the recoil of the guns...

barrio_boy_08 · « **Reply #5 on:** May 28, 2009, 11:58:42 AM »

ok cool, what about the type of controllers and servos to use?

SmAsH · « **Reply #6 on:** May 28, 2009, 03:26:19 PM »

well, you do have the option of making the gun autonomous so it tracks anything that moves which would be easier than trying to aim it at a target 150m away.
imagine trying to aim the gun remotely then shoot someone that far away!
any controller with the amount of channels +1 will do fine.
so if you had 5 servos running get a 6 channel... this allows for a bit of expansion if you ever want to change anything around.
also, if you have the money, admin recommends getting digital transmitter.

barrio_boy_08 · « **Reply #7 on:** May 29, 2009, 10:09:02 AM »

ok how would I make the gun autonomous? And what else do you or recommend before I get started?

SmAsH · « **Reply #8 on:** May 29, 2009, 03:38:05 PM »

well, there's not so much that i can recommend but, do you have a budget?
to make the gun autonomous you would most likely need a camera and a blob
tracking algo... take a look at the blackfin and get back to me with the budget.

barrio_boy_08 · « **Reply #9 on:** June 02, 2009, 11:59:28 AM »

I'm guessing like $500 but i don't know

SmAsH · « **Reply #10 on:** June 02, 2009, 02:35:13 PM »

that would be an alright starting point.
some things you need to consider are:
servos/motors (and appropriate driver)
camera
remote control rx/tx
chassis
paintball gun
other mounts/accessories.

4by4 · « **Reply #11 on:** June 03, 2009, 01:47:47 PM »

The web site www.rctankcombat.com has everything you ever wanted to know about RC + paintball, but the emphasis is on tanks not RC trucks. Still a lot of the how-to stuff is applicable. Forget about automatic targeting. If you are new to this hobby, that would be way beyond your knowledge level. Also, you will find it will be expensive just to assemble the basic vehicle and gun, unless you can find really cheap second hand gear.

SmAsH · « **Reply #12 on:** June 03, 2009, 03:01:04 PM »

well... is there really much difference between a truck and a tank?
besides the tracks... i mean a small wal-mart rc tank would be an awesome platform to put this thing on!
4by4, are you sure this would be two hard? as admin said in another post
"get two sharp ir sensors and make one track the left side of an object and the other the right then make the
gun aim in between" i think this would not be too hard?

4by4 · « **Reply #13 on:** June 04, 2009, 09:00:47 AM »

Well yes, most of the info at the site is applicable to both tanks and trucks.

You could build a simple targeting system that uses a rangefinder or two, if all you want to do is shoot anything that your rangefinders bounce off of, and within the short range that they have.

SmAsH · « **Reply #14 on:** June 04, 2009, 02:44:12 PM »

Quote from: 4by4 on June 04, 2009, 09:00:47 AM

You could build a simple targeting system that uses a rangefinder or two, if all you want to do is shoot anything that your rangefinders bounce off of, and within the short range that they have.

but then wont it fire on all trees/rocks in the area?

barrio_boy_08 · « **Reply #15 on:** June 05, 2009, 12:16:18 PM »

That was the same thing I was thinking because what if I find one of my team mates i don't want it shooting them.

4by4 · « **Reply #16 on:** June 05, 2009, 02:08:26 PM »

Yes that's the problem with Smash's idea, if I understood what he was talking about, you can't distinguish targets. You're just shooting at whatever shows up in the Sharp IR's. If you really want to do automatic targeting you have to have some kind of object recognition. That is the difficult part, and would require some kind of video processing.

SmAsH · « **Reply #17 on:** June 05, 2009, 03:09:54 PM »

not necessarily, you may be able to have some kind of beacon on your team mates such as an ir beacon as this wouldn't give you away. if you were to use a camera i would suggest using color tracking but as paintball is a wargame most people would be wearing cams... and i know how hard it is to spot someone in a ghillie suit

this is quite a hard one to do. ill do some research for you over the weekend.

barrio_boy_08 · « **Reply #18 on:** June 08, 2009, 12:40:49 PM »

My whole idea was to have the base of an r/c car or truck on right on top of it was a paintball gun that has can be fired and move up and down and left to right. Something that i might have left out was a mini camera on the gun so i can see where i'm shooting and to see whats around me. the only reason why i didn't want to make it autonomous is because it is a little advanced for me and the more complex it is the more difficult it will be to repair. but it is some great advice! Could I use a gas powered r/c for the base?

SmAsH · « **Reply #19 on:** June 08, 2009, 03:30:59 PM »

ahh ok,
gas powered will work for a base. it just has to get it from point a to point b.
one problem with a camera is that most people will be extremely hard to see unless they run out in front of you
and to make things worse you wont exactly have a plasma to view it on.
robots on the other hand can detect the smallest of changes and operate on their own so you can get on with
blowing your friends head off.
anyway, if you re staring at the screen who is watching your back?
making this thing autonomous wouldn't be too hard but it would take some time...

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Author Topic: Remote Controlled Paintball Robot (Read 8869 times)