RoboTube — a Robotic MIT Admissions Tube via Hack-a-day.

When I received my admission letter from MIT, it came coupled with an invitation to “hack” the shiny silver shipping tube the letter came in. I decided there was no better way to do this than by building a robot. And from that moment on, RoboTube was born. I wanted to turn to tube into a robot that could roam around and avoid obstacles — a relatively simple task — but I wanted it to be able to transform itself into a robot a collapse back into it’s normal form factor, a regular old MIT admissions tube.

The robot uses a servo to open and close, two 100:1 gearmotors to drive, an Arduino Uno to think, an L293D chip for motor control, two 9V batteries and asome regulators for power, and a long range Sharp GP2Y0A02YK0F infrared rangefinder to see.