Custom PCB Line-Following Robot - IESL RoboGames 2026
One mass-producible board so school teams could build, break and repair the same robot.
Overview
For the IESL RoboGames school category I designed a custom line-following, distance-sensing robot platform intended for students who are meeting robotics for the first time.
The brief was as much a manufacturing problem as an electronics one: the board had to be producible in quantity, durable enough to survive students, and consistent enough that every team started from the same baseline.
Enchantments 3
- ISingle ATmega328-based board integrating sensors, motor control and power regulation.
- IIDesigned for mass production - improved durability, reliability and unit-to-unit consistency.
- IIICompact, education-first layout as a practical introduction to robotics.
Field notes
Design for manufacture, not just for one
A one-off robot and a robot you make fifty of are different objects. This board leaned on DFM thinking: sensible footprints, tolerant power regulation, and a layout that survives hand-assembly and repair by beginners.
Consistency was the real deliverable - if every team's hardware behaves identically, the competition tests the students' code and ideas rather than which robot happened to be built well.
What's on the board
Line-following and distance sensing on the input side, motor drive on the output side, and power regulation to keep an ATmega328 happy across a range of battery states - all in a footprint small enough for a compact chassis.
Recipe 5 ingredients
Item frames 3
