Back view of Fusion robot build.
Modern Robotics sells kits for both Spartan and Fusion Robots. Apart from the Controllers, the physical components in both robot kits have many similarities. If you own a Spartan Robot, and decide you want to control your robot using Fusion’s Python computer language instead of Spartan’s C computer language, it is possible to successfully mount a Fusion Controller on a Spartan robot base. This is what I did to achieve this change.
Since the metal components of the Fusion Base Kit are very similar to the metal components in Modern Robotics Inc.’s Spartan base kit, replacing the Spartan controller on my existing Spartan Robot by a Fusion Controller was fairly straight-forward. My Fusion build mostly followed the Spartan build you can find in Modern Robotic’s Spartan build pdf, and in a YouTube Video. However some changes were necessary.
The Fusion controller is bigger than Spartan’s Arduino controller. In the picture above, you can see the location of the mounting points I have used for the posts supporting the Fusion Controller. The mounting points for the Fusion Controller are also shown in Step 3 and “Step 14” (the second “Step 12”) of Modern Robotics’ Fusion Build Instructions that are available here. The Fusion controller is mounted sideways to allow sufficient space to enable sensors to be mounted behind the controller, if this is required in the future.
The sensors supplied with the Fusion Base Kit are also different from those supplied as part of the Spartan Kit. The Fusion kit contains one Optical Distance Sensor and one Integrating Gyro Sensor. Both are mounted on the top front of the metal base, as you can see in the picture above.
The Spartan Kit includes two Optical Distance sensors. I found it convenient to change the standard Spartan mounting position of the second (left) Optical Distance Sensor, to that shown in the image below. This change will help prepare your Robot for the Robot SUMO Using Fusion and Fusion Follows a Line Edge tutorials.
Spartan Robot Two Optical Distance Sensors
