RoboTraverse

What it is

A custom-built rope-traversing robot for the CSE Robotics Club’s RoboTraverse challenge - a manual time-trial competition where robots race along a suspended rope. It took first place, covering the 10 metre course in 2.16 seconds.

Technical notes

• ESP32 driving a brushless DC (BLDC) motor through an electronic speed controller, commanded over Bluetooth Serial
• Traction from a custom 3D-printed U-grooved wheel gripping a nylon-jute rope
• Hard weight limit of 500g shaped nearly every decision: motor choice, battery size, how much frame could be trimmed without losing rigidity
• Single-character command protocol (F launch, S stop, 0-9 throttle map, q full throttle) at 115200 baud, with a failsafe that auto-stops the motor if the Bluetooth link drops

Evidence

The public repository has the full source, pinout table, and a build photo. It’s a small codebase - the interesting part of this project is mechanical and electrical, not the firmware.

Next iteration

The current run is entirely manual (throttle mapped directly to hand input). A logical next step would be closed-loop speed control against an encoder, to see whether a tuned acceleration curve beats hand-tuned throttle.