Butter Bot's capabilities can be upgraded using expansion modules.
The extra modules pack has the following modules:
Gas sensor
Infrared receiver/transmitter
Alarm (motion sensor)
Temperature & humidity sensor
LED array
Perfboard - for custom designs
If you have the skills and ambition to jump into electronics and software hacking, you can also create your own modules!
The necessary hardware resources are in the following .zip, so let's go over what you'll find inside:
Butter Bot modules schematics - These six modules serve as examples to kickoff your custom design.
Butter Bot modules gerbers - This is the complete board layout for a panel with all six modules included, useful for designing your custom PCB
Butter Bot robot schematics - The schematic of the entire robot, with its top and bottom boards.
The perfboard module is an excellent starting point for your own custom module. You can tinker with it by soldering sensors, motors, LEDs and more onto it.
Then, get acquainted with the Butter Bot robot schematics and how the modules are wired to the robot itself.
Now, you have all you need to modify the software so you can control and communicate with your newly designed module.
For designing your custom modules from scratch, we recommend these steps:
Get yourself familiar with the existing modules and their board layout. The important part is the connector slot itself.
Design your custom module PCB in your design software of choice. For beginners we recommend KiCad - a popular and free PCB design suite.
Manufacture your own module - important to note that the PCB thickness needs to be 1.2 mm!