About
Pictorus is an early-stage software for hardware company, focusing on Rust-based visual programming for robotics projects and systems. I joined as their first employee, helping to showcase their software platform with physical demo projects. The Balance Bot project showcases a classic controls systems challenge of a two-wheeled self-balancing robot in a DIY-style form factor. Two versions of this robot were built - one with just a single-board computer (B-Bot) and another with an auxiliary microcontroller (C-Bot) to demonstrate Pictorus’s embedded systems capabilities.
Tools/Skills: Electro-mechanical design, CAD, 3D printing, soldering, PID controller tuning, copy/content creation
B-Bot (Single-Board Computer)
The first iteration of the balance bot was designed to be built completely in-house and with off-the-shelf parts. The entire body including the wheel treads were manufactured on a 3D printer. A Raspberry Pi 4, motion sensors, and brushless DC motors were integrated into the 3D-printed chassis.
The robot is controlled using Pictorus’s visual programming platform, which generally functions like Simulink in the context of controls systems. After tuning the controller, the robot can balance upright and is able to park/unpark.
B-Bot was used for investor product demonstrations in Pictorus’s Series A round of funding. For a more complete + technical writeup of this project, see Pictorus’s blog post.
C-Bot (auxiliary microcontroller)
In the second iteration of this project, an auxiliary (STM32) microcontroller was added to demonstrate the platform’s upcoming embedded programming capabilities. In addition to the physical integration of this new board, a custom breakout PCB was created in order to improve wire management.