Assembling your Trilobot

2023-04-10 | By Pimoroni

License: See Original Project Keyboards Raspberry Pi SBC

Guide by Pimoroni

Trilobot is a mid-level, expandable, learning-friendly robot with sweet ‎underlighting and lots of example code to get you started. This tutorial will ‎show you how to put everything together, how to install the Trilobot library ‎and run the examples - you'll be zooming around in no time!‎

What You'll Need

A Trilobot kit - we do a Base Kit and a Full Kit! If you have the Base Kit, ‎then you will also need:‎
A Raspberry Pi 4 - any flavour will work. If you want to use an older Pi ‎with this kit that's also possible (as long as it's one of the ones with a ‎‎40-pin header), but you'll need to pick up a different power cable
A Raspberry Pi Camera v2
A microSD card
A USB-C power bank

With both the Full and Base Kit, you'll also need the following, which aren't ‎included in the kits.‎

A micro-HDMI to HDMI cable or other means of connecting your Pi to a ‎display
A HDMI monitor
A USB keyboard for installing the software and programming Trilobot
A USB mouse for interacting with graphical elements of the Raspberry ‎Pi OS
For charging your power bank you will also need a USB-C power ‎supply like this universal one or the official Raspberry Pi one (if you go ‎for the official one, make sure you pick the correct power supply for ‎your region).‎

Preparation

It'll take an hour or so to build your Trilobot. Make sure you have sufficient ‎build space to put everything together without bits rolling off and getting lost. ‎You’ll need a small Phillips screwdriver (or, if the effort of turning a ‎screwdriver manually seems too old school, a Wowstick).‎

Here's a complete list of everything that's inside each kit. If you're missing ‎anything, drop the support ninjas an email at support@pimoroni.com and ‎they'll sort it out.‎

BASE KIT

Trilobot main chassis board (big PCB with all the LEDs and other ‎components, identifiable from its fancy gold bumper)
Trilobot top board (big PCB with a picture of a battery on top and ‎oodles of gold triangles on the underside)
Trilobot front board (small PCB that looks a bit like a face wearing a ‎bowler hat. Has ECHO and PIMORONI.COM printed on the front)
Trilobot camera board (small PCB with CAM CABLE printed on the ‎back)
‎2 110:1 micro metal gearmotors with pre-soldered shims
‎2 grippy orange wheels
‎2 short motor cables (2 pin JST-ZH to JST-ZH, for the cable aficionados)
A pair of motor brackets and fixings (in a bag labelled COM0817)‎
Metal standoffs and screws (in a bag labelled Rover Standoff Set)‎
Ball castor with fixings
Acrylic spacer
Ultrasonic distance sensor
Booster header
‎2 Velcro cable tidies
USB-C to USB-C cable

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FULL KIT

In the Full Kit, you'll get everything in the Base Kit plus

Boxed Raspberry Pi 4
Boxed Raspberry Pi Camera v2 (with cable)
USB-C power bank
MicroSD Card (with Raspberry Pi OS pre-installed)‎

Assembly

ADDING THE MOTORS AND WHEELS TO THE MAIN BOARD

To start, you'll need to find the Trilobot main chassis board and remove it ‎from its anti-static bag - this board is the base of your Trilobot and it's where ‎all the action happens. You'll also need all the motor gubbins: two micro ‎metal gearmotors with attached shims, two black plastic motor brackets, ‎two short motor cables, and a pair of orange wheels. The whole set should ‎look like this:‎

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Empty out the motor bracket bag. From it take a motor bracket and insert a ‎nut in either side. This can be a tight fit so you may need something (such as ‎a flat-head screwdriver) to help you push the nuts in. Do this for both motor ‎brackets.‎

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Flip the brackets over and insert the micro metal gearmotors, like so:‎

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Take the longer of the two screws and mount each motor onto the underside ‎of the Trilobot main chassis board. The underside is the side of the board ‎with the Trilobot logo and name, not the side with the Raspberry Pi outline.‎

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You should be left over with a few screws and nuts. This is fine. These are ‎extras in case any go missing :)‎

Next, take the two short motor cables and plug them in, connecting the ‎motor shims and the main board. Take the two grippy wheels and push them ‎onto the axles of the two motors. These can be quite stiff so might need a bit ‎of force.‎

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ADDING THE CASTOR TO THE MAIN BOARD

That's it for the motors - now it's time to add the castor which acts as the ‎robot's 'rear wheel'. Find the bag with the castor and its associated nuts and ‎bolts, and the round black acrylic spacer.‎

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Remove the protective film from the spacer. Pop the castor out of its plastic ‎housing - if you're struggling to get a grip a small flathead screwdriver can ‎help with this.‎

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Poke the long silver screws that came with the castor and into the plastic ‎housing, like this:‎

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Slot the spacer over the sticking out ends of the screws.‎

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Then insert the screws through the holes on the underside of the Trilobot ‎main board - you'll see where it's meant to go from the board markings. Take ‎the silver nuts and screw them on to the ends of the screws, then tighten ‎everything up!‎

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Finally, re-add the castor ball to the housing. This can require some ‎encouragement - you will hear and feel a solid clunk when it is successful.‎

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Now you have the driving section of your Trilobot assembled!‎

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PREPARING YOUR RASPBERRY PI CAMERA

For this stage, you will need your Raspberry Pi 4, Raspberry Pi Camera ‎v2, Trilobot camera board, and the rover standoff set.‎

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Unbox the Raspberry Pi Camera. It should come with a cable pre-attached.‎

Grab the Trilobot camera board and feed the camera through its large cutout ‎from the side that says CAMERA CABLE to the side that says CAM.‎

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Lay the camera down, so that its board fits into the hashed area, like so:‎

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In the rover standoff set you will find some very small M2 nuts and bolts. Use ‎them to attach the camera to the camera board. Do this by inserting the ‎screws from the CAM CABLE side so they stick up out of the front side of the ‎camera.‎

Then, take the M2 nuts and screw them on to the front. You should now have ‎an assembly that looks like this:‎

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Next, get out the Raspberry Pi 4, take the free end of the camera cable, and ‎connect it to the Pi. You can open up the camera connector by gently pulling ‎the grey part upwards slightly. Poke the cable into the connector with the ‎blue side of the cable pointing towards the Pi's USB ports, and then push ‎down the grey bit of the connector down to lock it in place. The camera ‎connector is the one in the middle of the Pi - don't be lured in by the display ‎connector at the other end that is very similar!‎

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MOUNTING YOUR RASPBERRY PI

For this, you will need the Trilobot chassis assembly, Raspberry Pi 4 ‎assembly, booster header, and the rover standoff set.‎

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From the rover standoff set take 4 of the M2.5 screws and the 4 long ‎standoffs.‎

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Mount the standoffs to the Trilobot main chassis assembly using the screws, ‎so that they are sticking up out of the Raspberry Pi outline.‎

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Take the booster header and plug it into the matching socket header on the ‎Trilobot main chassis assembly.‎

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Then take the Raspberry Pi 4, flip it upside down, and plug it into the booster ‎header with the USB and Ethernet ports at the back of the robot. The camera ‎cable should be dangling over the front of Trilobot.

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To secure the Raspberry Pi 4, take the 4 shorter standoffs from the rover ‎standoff set and attach the ends with the screw threads through the Pi into ‎the standoffs you installed earlier.‎

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ASSEMBLING THE FRONT

For this bit, you will need the Trilobot front board, ultrasound sensor, and ‎the Trilobot chassis assembly.‎

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Take the ultrasound sensor and insert it into the Trilobot front board, covering ‎the hashed area.‎

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Then, holding both together, plug the ultrasound sensor into the connector ‎labelled ECHO on the Trilobot main chassis board.

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Wiggle the Trilobot front board around until it aligns up with the slots in the ‎PCB and push down.‎

Once done, your assembly should look like this. Now it has a face!‎

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Take the camera assembly and insert the bottom tabs into the slots on the ‎main board that are just behind the ultrasound sensor. Push it forward so the ‎camera goes inside the square hole on the Trilobot front board.‎

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MOUNTING THE BATTERY

Nearly there! For this step, you will need the Trilobot top board, your USB-C ‎power bank, and the two Velcro cable tidies.‎

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First, you need to choose which side you want of the top board to be visible. ‎We will be showing you with the Trilobot logo side on top (but we're rather ‎fond of the glitzy Triangular pattern side too).‎

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Take the Velcro cable tidies and the top board. Feed the ties through the long ‎slots from the top side, around the underside, and back up to the top side. ‎We recommend doing this with the soft fabric side facing towards the board, ‎to avoid scratches to it and your battery bank.‎

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Now, take your battery bank and place it in between the open Velcro ends on ‎your top side, with the USB-C output facing the front. If you're using the ‎battery bank that's included in the Full Kit, this will have the power button be ‎on the right. The Trilobot logo side of the top board has a handy outline ‎showing where your battery bank should go.‎

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Poke the tie ends through the slots and fold them over the battery bank to ‎hold it in place. Be sure to do this tightly so that your battery bank won't slide ‎around as your Trilobot moves.‎

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ADDING THE TOP

For the last stage you will need the Trilobot chassis assembly, the Trilobot ‎top assembly, the USB-C power cable, and the remaining M2.5 screws from ‎the rover standoff set.‎

Take the USB-C power cable and plug one end into your Raspberry Pi 4's ‎power connector.‎

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Feed the other end of the cable through the large hole in the underside of the ‎Trilobot top board and line up the front slot with the now vertical front and ‎camera boards.‎

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Push the top board down over the front and camera boards to lock them in ‎place. This can be a tight fit, so may require some gentle side-to-side rocking ‎of the top board to push it down. You should be left with something like this.‎

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With that pushed down, feed the excess USB cable down into the gap ‎between the Raspberry Pi 4 and the Trilobot top board.‎

Finally, take 4 M2.5 screws and screw down the Trilobot top board into the ‎standoffs you installed earlier.‎

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With that done, your Trilobot is now assembled. Victory snack time!‎

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First Time Set-up

These instructions will assume you're programming Trilobot by attaching a ‎USB keyboard, USB mouse, and HDMI monitor to it, but you could also set up ‎your Pi headlessly and connect to it via SSH if you prefer.‎

Take the microSD card, remove it from its big SD card-sized adapter, and ‎insert it into the Pi's microSD card slot.‎

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Plug in the free USB-C end of the power cable into Trilobot's power bank - this ‎will cause the Pi to start booting.‎

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Wait for the Raspberry Pi desktop to appear, and follow the standard Pi OS ‎onscreen instructions to configure your Raspberry Pi and connect it to wi-fi. If ‎you need help with any of these steps, there's loads of useful info on ‎the Raspberry Pi site.‎

For the next bit, you'll need to have I2C and the camera enabled in the ‎Raspberry Pi Configuration utility. You can find it in the Raspberry Pi OS ‎menus under Preferences, or you can open up a terminal and type sudo raspi-‎config. The options are under 'Interfaces' in the GUI or 'Interfacing Options' in ‎the command line utility.‎

Once that's all set up, reboot your Pi!‎

Installing the Trilobot Python Library

Open up a terminal - click on the terminal icon in the taskbar or find it in the ‎menus.‎

Then we're going to type the following, pressing enter after each line:‎

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git clone https://github.com/pimoroni/trilobot-python
cd trilobot-python
sudo ./install.sh

This downloads the Trilobot software from Github to your Pi. We then ‎navigate into the folder that the files have been downloaded to and run the ‎installer script to set everything up. It will give you the option to copy the ‎examples to /home/pi/Pimoroni/trilobot, press Y to do that.‎

After the installer's done its thing, you can delete the downloaded directory to ‎keep everything tidy:‎

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sudo rm -r ~/trilobot-python/

Once everything's installed, it's probably a good idea to reboot again.‎

Running Your First Example

Navigate into the examples folder with:‎

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cd ~/Pimoroni/trilobot/examples

and type ls to view a list of them. You can find more details about what each ‎one does in the examples readme.‎

To run one, just type python3 and then the name of the example - e.g.‎

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python3 flash_underlights.py

Next Steps

Playing with the examples is a great way of discovering what Trilobot is ‎capable of, but there's also documentation here if you want to really dig into ‎the library functions. We'd love to hear what you and Trilobot get up to - drop ‎us a tweet @pimoroni and let us know!‎

That's all folks!