PATHFINDER

Pathfinder was my first solo student project, with a clear brief: design a robot from a very limited set of imposed components.

The constraint was part of the point. Locomotion, sensing, power, and structure all had to fit into a simple, credible, and actually functional system.

With only two servo motors, one Arduino, one ultrasonic sensor, one battery pack, and 3D-printed parts, the challenge was not to add artificial complexity, but to design something right.

I took visual inspiration from Wall-E for the robot’s design.

That choice led me to use tracks instead of wheels, which created a higher mechanical challenge than a simpler architecture would have required.

I also paid attention to integration quality: no visible wires, the battery pack hidden in the back, and access to power through a properly integrated hatch.

Even at this scale, I already wanted the robot to feel like a coherent object rather than a rough school assembly.

The control strategy was intentionally simple: continuously follow the right wall.

The goal was not to build a complex algorithm, but to obtain reliable behavior with very limited hardware and software resources.

This project taught me that a system can be technically simple while still being well designed if strategy, mechanics, and integration work together.

Pathfinder was an important first step in the way I think about robotics.

It taught me that mechanical choices matter as much as code, that constraints can improve a project, and that a robot becomes much more credible when its integration is clean.

It is a small robot, but a foundational project in my path.