Weed Robot

Team Weed Scouts has completed our work on a weed-cutting robot for the Girl Scouts of California’s Central Coast. The final robot build provides a solid foundation that can be built and improved upon by future teams. We have completed the robot base and structure, including the chassis, drivetrain, and robot shell. We also completed manufacturing a weed storage bin and canvas cover for the robot. Additionally, we have built a weed scooper, the mechanism that cuts weeds and transports them into a storage compartment. The electronics and programming for remote control of the robot are also implemented. After some testing, we found that the robot had limited functionality. It was able to drive around with slight power issues but unfortunately, the weed scooper was not able to fully cut and transport the weeds. Despite these obstacles, we have created a semi-operable foundation for future teams to optimize, test, and debug. The next steps include adding a weed shredder and developing autonomous robot functionality along with weed identification. Upon project completion, the weed-cutting robot will help maintain the grounds at Camp Arnaz and serve as a source of engineering inspiration for Girl Scouts and other camp visitors