Rickishi

Sumo wrestling robot

Rikishi is a professional sumo wrestler in Japanese. Our robot Rickishi was built to compete in a robot sumo competition where robots must autonomously push each other off a rubber mat. We built this to learn the basics of mechatronics. All the hardware was made using rapid prototyping techniques, primarily laser cutting and 3d printing with heat-set inserts for fasteners. A custom PCB was made to house all the electronics and make it easy to connect all the components. An ATMega8 microcontroller was used to receive all the sensor inputs and control the motors. An ESP32 on a Wemos D1 Mini was used as the programmer for the ATMega8 to make uploading new firmware more convenient.