Robotics.

Three competition robots, two seasons, four burned MCUs. I build for Robofinist (BY) and FIRA (international). All ESP32, all open-source.

01 — Self-balancing

Balance_robot — 2026 season.

Balance_robot — FIRA 2026

Stack

ESP32-S3 · MPU6050 IMU · 2× TMC2209 steppers · 12V NEMA 17 motors · 3S LiPo.

Control: cascaded PID on angle + velocity, Kalman filter on IMU, 200 Hz loop on a second core.

What it does

Stays upright on two wheels, takes a remote-control input, and rolls around without falling over. Survives a soft push. Climbs a 5° ramp.

Won't survive a hard kick. We're working on that.

Robofinist

2nd place, regional round. Lost to a much larger budget from a university team. Tuning was the limit, not hardware.

2026 season — final round planned for autumn.

02 — Autonomous RC

fira-autonomous-rc-car — FIRA Autonomous Car Challenge

Stack

Raspberry Pi 4 (vision) + Arduino Mega (motor control) · Logitech C270 cam · YOLO v8 nano + HSV lane detector · Pixy-like color gates.

Decision: hand-tuned state machine (lane-keeping → detect stop sign → stop → resume). No neural net for behaviour.

Track

FIRA Autonomous Car Challenge: 3 lanes (red/yellow/blue) marked on the floor, 4 colour-gate obstacles, must finish in <90s with no human input.

Camera at 30 FPS, detection on Pi, control signal to Arduino at 50 Hz.

03 — Arkanoid paddle

Arkanoid robot — OpenMV + BLDC gimbal

Stack

ESP32 + OpenMV cam + 1× brushless gimbal motor (gimbal mod) + 1× hobby servo for the paddle. Plays Arkanoid in real-time on a real TV.

First serious robotics project — 2023/2024.

What I learned

Camera latency is the whole problem. After that, motor dynamics. After that, ball trajectory. The "AI" is the easy part.

Wrote up a postmortem — might publish eventually.

Tools I use

Embedded

ESP32 family (S2, S3, original), STM32 (Blue Pill, Nucleo), Arduino Mega/Uno, Raspberry Pi Pico (RP2040).

Motor control

TMC2209 steppers, BLDC via ESC, hobby servos, DC brushed via BTS7960. PID tuning by hand or Ziegler-Nichols.

Sensors

MPU6050 IMU, BME280, HC-SR04 sonar, VL53L0X time-of-flight, OV2640 / C270 camera, simple encoders.

Software

Arduino IDE for sketches, PlatformIO for serious projects, OpenCV + Python for vision, KiCad for boards, FreeCAD for mechanical parts.