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Beeb-Bot is a fully open hardware recreation of the 1983 Economatics BBC Buggy robot. The robot was originally designed as a STEM educational tool to accompany the Acorn BBC Microcomputer that was popular in schools at the time. Beeb-bot is designed for educational and hobby use; the robot can be printed, assembled and used with all stages providing different educational aspects into the design, construction and use of robotics (as well as programming, mathematics and geometry when using the robot).
The original robot was constructed from Fischertechnik, a building block system similar to lego but better suited for teaching engineering since it is possible to make strong, complex shapes with fewer parts. The original BBC Buggy was made using a combination of standard hardware (motors, screws, nuts, etc.), standard Fischertechnik aluminium and plastics parts as well as a number of specific Fischertechnik compatible parts that were unique to the robot kit.
The Beeb-Bot design has two construction uses; either the 3D printed parts can be used to create a complete robot or the individual parts can be used as a direct one-to-one replacement in order to repair or complete an original BBC Buggy (as they are still used by organisations and individuals). Every part of Beeb-Bot is designed to be both 3D printable and fully backwards-compatible with the original Economatics kit.
To cut down on the required amount of printing it is possible to source original Fischertechnik parts for those pieces still produced (or to source older parts second-hand). Every part is designed to be as close as possible in function and appearance as the original parts, however there are variations in the design to make the parts more suitable for FFF 3D printing (which brings it's own limitations around shape and form when compared to injection moulded plastic parts).
Beeb-Bot is printed as a kit which must be assembled in order to build the complete robot (an educational task in itself) and full build instructions are provided in this wiki. Some of the 3D printed parts require individual assembly, this is covered in the Parts Assembly Guide.
The original BBC Buggy stepper motors are no longer manufactured (although it is possible to source them second-hand). Beeb-Bot provides a NEMA 17 compatible mounting bracket design and gears in order to use modern stepper motors interchangeably with the robot. The NEMA 17 mounting bracket is designed to allow modern stepper motors to act as a direct mechanical replacement to the original motors (however, there are electrical differences depending on the motor type, so one-to-one electronics compatibility is not possible).
The Beeb-Bot project is designed to provide a complete and extensible basis for building a 2 wheeled robot for both personal and educational use. Extending the design is possible through the use of additional copies of the supplied printable parts or by using the source-code (which provides a number of library functions) to produce new parts for sensors or adapted robot designs.
Note that Beeb-Bot is a mechanical recreation and does not (yet) include the required driving electronics.
The Beeb-Bot project is currently in first release. As the project progresses (and more robots are constructed) there will be updates and adjustments as required. As a first release, every part has been printed and tested both on the original Economatics BBC Buggy and as a completely 3D printed model.
The Beeb-Bot hardware is created using OpenSCAD; an open-source CAD tool that uses a programmatic style interface and all source code for the project is provided under the GPLv3 license. This allows anyone to freely use the design as well as adding new parts and modifying existing parts. The OpenSCAD source also provides a 'customizer' interface allowing control of the software and the generation of STL files for printing without the need to modify the source-code directly.
The following documentation is available from the wiki:
- Parts List - The available parts including pictures, descriptions and printing information
- Parts Assembly Guide - A guide to assembling the printed parts
- Robot Assembly Guide - A guide to constructing the Beeb-Bot
- OpenSCAD Source Guide - A guide to using the OpenSCAD source code