MakeBlock mBot LED / Ultrasonic Adapter Plate

thingiverse

The MakeBlock mBot has an impressive feature - the 8x16 LED panel can be attached to the front and display images/text. Unfortunately, there is no way in the MakeBlock Blockly code to indicate that the screen is mounted upside-down. This makes it impossible to also mount the ultrasonic sensor on the front as well. To solve this problem, I designed a simple adapter plate that can be laser cut from acrylic or 3D printed. The plate attaches to the original mounting holes/bolts and allows the LED panel to be installed the correct way up. Four M4 bolts/nuts hold the ultrasonic sensor in place on top of the panel. I rounded the edges of the adapter plate more than shown here, so it fits perfectly with the design of the LED panel. Incidentally, without or with my adapter plate, I found that the panel doesn't fit well on the front of the mBot. The LEDs get squashed against the metal frame and the cable output hits the main mBot logic unit. To fix this issue, I spaced the mounting of the LED panel forward by placing an M4 washer between it and the frame. I also raised the mBot logic unit a bit by adding M4 washers between the stand-offs and the frame. You can see videos of the mBot in action here: https://twitter.com/ChurchersComp/status/1063088526756077568 and here: https://twitter.com/ChurchersComp/status/1060114798686408705.