I like to put electrical tape on needle nose pliers (as well as the jaws of soldering third hands). The tape provides some friction and cushions parts from (potential) damage from the jaws.
The varying approaches have been fascinating as we all approach "Rover" with whatever part of the problem seems most interesting. I of course couldn't help myself from building a Flight System from scratch.
https://github.com/rhettg/stubborn
Continuing rover adventures, since my main robot design, Nature is Murder, is a complex 6-wheel rocker bogie, I decided I needed a very simple test chasis just to work on the motor control and programming in parallel. I decided to call it... Accessory Before the Fact 🤣
Unlike NIM, ABTF is not a production robot. It will have 4 driven wheels, each with an SG90 steering servo attached to a wheel unit with an N20 drive motor (4 corner holes), and a Beaglebone Blue board (4 posts)
It should be able to drive around fine, enough to test motor control, but probably can't handle significant obstacles or hold much by way of sensors and things... the mounting posts are to raise the board above the chassis, leaving room for a battery below
Printed and tried a partial ABTF assembly. Wanted to use 4x M3x20 flanged bolts and nuts to secure the board to the posts, but had to use unflanged for 2 because the mounting holes are cramped and right next to some components that don’t allow a flange or washer. Works though.
Next up: designing the drive motor housing and assembling the whole 8-motor beast. After which some janky JST wire harness assembly and adding a 7.4v lipo battery pack.
Then the Everest... actually programming the Beaglebone Blue. I’m frankly intimidated by that.