Having decided that the bot chassis was going to be smaller than the previous robot, in an effort to make it more manoeuvrable, this means that we would need to mount our motors at 90 degrees to the wheels.

This meant that we needed to look at creating a gear box that would take the drive through a 90 degree direction change. To start the process we draw up a diagram to illustrate the parts that we would need in order to achieve this.

When this was done we ordered the parts so that we could build them. We ordered four 1/4″ 16 Tooth Bevel Gears as they are pitched to mesh at 90 degrees to each other. As the gears are the same size on the motor and the shaft there will be no speed reduction or increase so the bot should function exactly as before. We also bought four Actobotics 1/4″ Ball Bearing Quad Pillow Blocks to hold the shaft that will have a gear on it and will be connected to the wheel.

The shaft and the bracket to hold the pillow blocks was custom made to attach to the motor using the same screw holes that the motor bracket uses to attach to the motor.

After constructing and testing the first one to ensure that it works as required we built the second gearbox so that both are ready to be mounted on the robot when the chassis has been built.