Mini Golf Robot
- Sep 6, 2025
- 2 min read
Robo-Lions takes great pride in our adaptive sports program. Over the years, we have made robots that allow those with disabilities to play sports that are just part of life for the rest of us. The icon of this program was our mini golf robots that allowed people to swing a golf club at the push of a button. The original design wasn't like the one you see here, but instead a large cart that would swing a full-sized golf club. These were very heavy and inconvenient.
Because of this, we strived to design a much smaller and lighter one that could even be carried in a backpack. I was the student lead on this project, putting me in charge of the design and manufacturing of this bot. These were done with two clients in mind that were wheelchair bound, so we needed a balance between ease of use and overall complexity.
We based the design on XRP robot kits that we had in the shop. These are mostly 3d printed and use hobby electronics. The alpha design laid out what we wanted from this robot, then the beta would be manufactured and tested.
It essentially used a servo driven lever to push the ball into the flywheel. This worked great, had a roughly 30ft range with the first version. For Beta v2, we switched the wheel's grip from a rubber band to a custom silicon tread using a mold and a vacuum chamber. This was probably my favorite part of the whole process, as I had never done molding before.
Although the Beta's shooter worked amazingly, we had issues with intaking the ball and aiming the shot. For the production version, we added a camera that ran a Tensorflow program to detect the ball and automatically intake it. Additionally, we added a laser module to help the controller aim the shot towards the hole.
This final version worked amazingly and one of our clients, Henry, tested it on the course.
Thanks for reading,
Austin
