Custom power supply interface for teaching circuit design

Abstract

This thesis discusses the design and implementation of a custom power supply interface for the Pioneer mobile robot used in MIT's 6.01 course, "Introduction to Electrical Engineering and Computer Science." The interface is a printed circuit board that provides bipolar voltage rails of +7VDC and -7VDC, expanding on its predecessor, which only provides a unipolar voltage rail of +1OVDC. The board is mounted internally to the robot and can power the student breadboard circuits via the bipolar voltage rails. This redesigned power supply interface will help the course staff teach students about circuit design in a much simpler context and allow students to focus more on engineering different circuits rather than spending time on tangential problems.