So Mike spent the weekend upgrading the shell and last night we drove it around some more. It’s getting there! Much smoother rolling and more robust. It was good to see how well it would stop and start. The drivetrain is working really well, though the steering has some issues. We took the Orb to the parking lot: it has no problem rolling up minor hills, but steering is tricky, and we also took it to the park so it could play on grass for the first time in its young life.

Still some issues: we found that the steering motor gearhead was jumping teeth, so we’ll need one with metal gears instead of plastic. Once we get that going then we can start to tune the steering motor control. Lots more things to do: mount the prototype circuit boards, lots of software development. Anyone interested, please get in touch: info@orbswarm.com

We also hung a door on our little elevated space at the Box Shop. Now I’m afraid I can’t call it anything but the “SWARM Dorm.”