DB21v3-J Duckiebot upgrade kit now available

The DB21Jv3 Duckiebot upgrade kit improves the omnidirectional wheel, reduces assembly time and increases compatibility with a range of Jetson Nano kits.

The DB21v3-J Duckiebot upgrade kit increases Duckiebot lifespan, enhances compatibility with different Jetson Nano 4GB development kits, improves driving performance, and reduces chassis assembly time.

Upgrading your Duckiebot from DB21-M or -J to DB21-Jv3

Building on the experience and feedback from users worldwide, Duckiebots have undergone many design iterations throughout the years.

This chassis upgrade, from DB21M or -J to DB21(v3)-J, introduces long-awaited improvements to the Duckiebot DB21 design, leading to shorter assembly time, better driving performance, and an overall improved user experience.

New omnidirectional wheel

A new omnidirectional wheel replaces the previous metal one, providing the following advantages with respect to the (historical) previous model:

Improved rigidity: Three points of contact with the chassis instead of two, for improved rigidity and overall better driving performance

Designed for maintenance: the new omnidirectional wheel can be opened and cleaned, providing an opportunity for removing the gunk that naturally builds up inside the wheel. This increases the life span of the wheel, and to some extent of the whole robot

Uniform friction in all directions: thanks to the symmetry design and the undeformable nature of the components, this wheel provides more isotropic performance with respect to the previous model, leading to less force disturbance on the chassis and overall better driving performances.

Easier assembly process

For those who have experienced building DB21M/J Duckiebots, the mechanical tolerances between the characteristic chassis design and the metal nuts occasionally led to frustration. By replacing the metal chassis assembly screws and bolts with Nylon ones, Duckiebots become:

Faster to assemble: thanks to perfect fits

More joyful to assemble: thanks to a more reproducible Duckiebot assembly experience

Compatible chassis

The upgraed chassis now supports multiple Jetson Nano variants, including Jetson Super Orin Nano, OKDOs C100 Jetson Nano 4GB development Kit, and Waveshare Jetson Dev Kit.

Learn more about Duckietown

Duckietown is a set of tools that enables hands-on robotics and AI learning experiences.

It is designed to help teach, learn, and do research: from exploring the fundamentals of computer science and automation to pushing the boundaries of human knowledge.

Duckiebots now available pre-assembled and initialized

Save time and start using your robot right out of the box with pre-assembled and pre-initialized Duckiebots, now available on the Duckietown shop.

Thanks to the feedback of instructors in the Duckietown community, Duckiebots (from DB21J v3) are now available pre-assembled and initialized. Customized names are available, too.

Assembling the hardware and initializing the software of your Duckiebot can take up to more than six hours, assuming you have an already functional working environment. Doing it once is a great learning experience; repeating the process for an entire class may become tiresome.

Quick links

Why pre-assembly and initialization services?

Duckiebot kits require assembly, initialization, and calibration to operate autonomously.

Assembly is about putting together the mechanical part of the robot and making sure each component works according to specifications.
Initialization is about installing the software and setting it up correctly.
Calibration is about fine-tuning the behavior of sensors and actuators, for example, performing camera intrinsics and extrinsics calibrations.

While calibrations are very sensitive and should be performed just before using the Duckiebot in its actual operating environment, assembly and initialization are time-consuming activities that are fun to perform a few times, but not repeatedly.

An experienced Duckietowner might take 2-3 hours to assemble a Duckiebot, roughly one hour to initialize it, and another hour to test, address potential mistakes, update, and overall make sure that everything is working as it should. And this is assuming having already a correctly set up working environment, i.e., workstation and network.

For an inexperienced Duckietown user, it will take longer than 4-5 hours to get everything up and running.

This is why we now offer the option to acquire Duckiebots that are directly assembled, initialized, and up-to-date before they reach you.

What do you get with a pre-assembled and initialized Duckiebot

The Duckiebot pre-assembly and initialization service ensures that:

All hardware components are recognized and operating nominally upon receiving your Duckiebot
Your Duckiebot ships with some residual battery charge (subject to shipping regulations)
Firmware on the HUT and battery are up to date with the latest version
Duckiebot Software is initialized with the latest ente release
Network is pre-installed, and the credentials are provided
Your Duckiebot(s) is provided with a standard name (e.g., duckiebot01, duckiebot02, …, duckiebotNN)
You get a video of the quality control tests done on each of your Duckiebots.

What should you do after receiving a pre assemble and initialized Duckiebot?

After receiving your Duckiebot, there will be a few last steps to take care of before being able to drive autonomously down your Duckietown. For example, you will:

need a Duckietown unless you already have one;
have to remove the protective covers from the camera, time-of-flight sensor, and screen
customize the network credentials to your own (or, create a default duckietown network)
calibrate the camera and odometry of your Duckiebot, and fine tune autonomy pipeline parameters for your specific environment.

Learn more about Duckietown

Duckietown enables state-of-the-art robotics and AI learning experiences.

It is designed to help teach, learn, and do research: from exploring the fundamentals of computer science and automation to pushing the boundaries of human knowledge.