Robotics, Rover Upgrades and more at Hanze Makerspace: Meet the ‘Krieltjes Kijker’ and the ‘Pieper Kieker’!
As a member of the DigiAgro research team, the Hanze Makerspace has been working on their agriculture robotics! The original full-scale rover, which was named the ‘Pieper Kieker’ (Gronings for Potato Watcher), was built two years ago and has been designed to detect faulty or sick potato plants in crops, as a less labor intensive automated option for a job that very few are qualified to do anymore nowadays. This was an inspiring robotics project back then already, but is new ready for a facelift and continuation!
Students of mechanical engineering, also working with the Digi Agro team, are therefore now working with the Makerspace on upgrading the drive systems and other hardware for better offroad performance. Meanwhile, the Makerspace staff is tackling the electronics and interfacing side of the robotics platform, supporting the parallel software development efforts of the Digital Transformation lectorate. Our next goal is to develop the so-called ‘Krieltjes Kijker’: a smaller, scaled-down version of this big rover, as a navigation testing platform. This allows us to test and refine the new software safely and efficiently before loading it onto the full-sized ‘Pieper Kieker’!
Does this look familiar? This is the body frame for our 3 times smaller “Krieltjes Kijker”, and the base for testing new components and software.
Until this scale model frame is completed, this little guy will be our Hardware-evaluation platform for the ‘Krieltjes Kijker’ electronics. He will help us to start optimizing the motors, motor drivers and general power electronics until we can work those all into our new 1:3 scale model!
As part of the electronics upgrades, we’re diving into new technologies and platforms like ODrive for motor control, adopting CAN-bus for improved communication, and experimenting with ROS2 (Robot Operating System 2) for advanced robotics navigation capabilities. This learning process is helping the Makerspace team to expand their robotics expertise while pushing the rover project forward for our collaborative research efforts. We’re excited to explore these tools and see how they can enhance both the small and large rover’s performance!
Our space provides the tools, expertise, and collaborative environment needed for hands-on projects like this, for education, research and students alike. Come and try it yourself!
The Hanze Makerspace especially directly supports research projects like this with their expertise, tools, and a multidisciplinary team as a practical hands-on partner. We’re well equipped to tackle both educational and research projects in a variety of technical domains, so if you have a project in need of technical upgrades or a hands-on development partner, consider the Hanze Makerspace!
Always feel free to shoot us a mail at makerspace@org.hanze.nl
