🏆 Autonomous & Web-Controlled 4WD Robot | Electronics Department Robotics Competition CHAMPION

An autonomous and remote-view 4-wheel drive (4WD) wheeled robot built for the Electronics Department Robotics Competition, where it took 1st Place / Champion. The robot features a custom hardware build designed to look like the iconic SpongeBob SquarePants Patty Wagon, perfectly blending robust hardware engineering with an iconic creative aesthetic.

🥇 Robotics Champion Reward

🎥 Project Demo Videos

Robot Close-Up Demo 1

Robot Close-Up Demo 2

Key Features

🏆 Championship Winner: Awarded 1st Place in the Electronics Department Robotics Competition.
📷 First-Person View (FPV) Live Stream: High-performance video streaming handled over an MJPEG HTTP server (/stream), allowing effective steering even when completely out of line-of-sight.
🌐 Self-Hosted Web Dashboard: Serves a responsive HTML/CSS/JS control dashboard directly from the ESP32. Utilizes asynchronous AJAX requests (XMLHttpRequest) for zero-latency, real-time locomotion tracking.
⚡ Hardware-Level PWM Motor Control: Configured native ESP32 ledc peripherals running an 8-bit timer at 2000Hz across 4 hardware channels for highly fluid multi-directional movement.
💡 Toggleable Night-Vision Headlight: Direct software mapping to the onboard flash LED via hardware PWM, controllable remotely from the web UI to illuminate dark testing environments.
🔋 High-Endurance Power: Driven by a rechargeable 12V Lithium-Ion battery, ensuring consistent voltage and high current output for the 4WD motors during peak competition runs.

🛠️ Tech Stack & Hardware

Language: C++ / Arduino
Platform: Arduino IDE
Frameworks: esp_http_server.h, esp_camera.h, driver/ledc.h
Microcontroller: ESP32-CAM Development Board
Power System: Rechargeable 12V Lithium-Ion Battery
Architecture: 4WD Chassis, DC Gear Motors, Motor Driver Module.

👤 My Role: Sole Programmer

I was entirely responsible for the software architecture, UI design, and firmware programming of this project. Working solo on the software side, my core accomplishments included:

Asynchronous Web Architecture: Built the twin-port HTTP server topology to separate core API command routing (Port 80) from heavy MJPEG camera stream processing (Port 81) to eliminate control latency.
Kinematics & Duty Cycle Tuning: Developed customized movement arrays (robot_fwd, robot_fwd_left, etc.) utilizing underlying ESP32 ESP-IDF hardware abstractions to cleanly drive directional motor pairs.
UI/UX Development: Implemented an inline, mobile-optimized CSS touch-button layout featuring dual execution loops (onmousedown and ontouchstart) to prevent interface locking on touchscreen controllers.
System Integration: Debugged hardware-to-software bottlenecks, optimizing data block delivery times for real-time responsiveness during competition trials.