Electronics Bay

The electronics bay of the Swarmbot was a critical assembly that was utilized as the housing for the majority of the computer systems and batteries. The first major design feature that was implemented was the ability to remove the electronics bay as one component. To accomplish this the ‘rack’ assembly that the components are attached to is designed to be fastened only to a single tube flange. Specifically, the flange which contains all of the penetrators so that when necessary, the flange can be slipped off and the entire rack comes out with it. 

The racking pieces are made from antistatic plastic to prevent unintentional electrical discharging that could damage the components within the bay. Furthermore, the fasteners within the hull are all non-metal for the same purpose. These frame pieces were also chosen to be plastic to make it simple to change around the electronic component’s locations and configurations on the plate with respect to their individual fastening requirements. For example, the large blue block in figure 1 represents the primary battery and will likely need to be fastening to the board with 3D printed brackets as it has no built-in mounting holes, but the electronics board next to it can be screwed directly to the electronics rack surface if desired.