Devlog #7: Pin-Pinching Hacks, Mechanical Chaos, and Big Life Updates

– From Sep 21st to Sep 26th 2026 –

This past week has been an absolute blur of hardware troubleshooting, unexpected setbacks, physical injuries, and huge personal milestones.

After sending Jay@Stardance a video proving the Arduino Mega was officially toast (RIP), I jumped straight into assembling the cooling setup with the TEC1-12706 Peltier module. That thing gets insanely hot within seconds leaving me with a nice second degree burn as a souvenir. Since I still didn’t have a new tip for my soldering iron, I wired up the main rocker switch using good old Egyptian electrician techniques, twisting the bare wires around the pins in a slightly cursed knot, followed by plenty of electrical tape and heat shrink tubing.

With hardware up in the air, I spent considerable time optimizing circuit logic to minimize GPIO pins so the entire project could run on a single Arduino Uno if replacement funding fell through. Bypassing the microcontroller for components that stay on continuously (like the relay) saved digital pins immediately. By tying all eight HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor TRIG pins into a single line, the total GPIO requirement dropped down to just 13 pins, 1 shared TRIG pin + 8 individual ECHO pins 4 directional control pins for the L298N motor driver

On the physical build side, I finished the insulated fridge compartment, mounted access doors, installed locking latches, and laid out the lower drive chassis. Hot glue turned out to be useless against motor torque, and the heavy lithium battery pack caused the chassis to drag, so I installed a heavy duty caster wheel underneath the frame to balance the weight.

Then came the hardware headaches. The cheap 12V cooling fans turned out to be completely dead on arrival (details in the journal.md). Instead of dealing with local return hassles, I mounted them decoratively for display while keeping the working Peltier module unpowered to prevent further burns.

Mid-week brought an incredible thing: I got accepted into the Faculty of Science at Cairo University! 🥳 With the Stardance deadline extended to October 31st, I took a brief breather to celebrate followed by a quick internet outage that paused video logs. so I took 2 days off

Getting back to assembly, initial power tests revealed the DC motors were running way too fast. To tame the speed, I removed the jumpers on the L298N driver to enable PWM speed control, using up the absolute last 2 available GPIO pins on the Uno. I also had to rebalance the wheel alignment to expand the base area. The heavy battery was originally locking up the motors in the bottom tier, so I relocated it up to the middle tier which it’s super crowded now, but cable management kept it clean.

Naturally, I managed to cut my hand on the saw again while trimming wheel clearance, but thankfully it was minor.

With the chassis built and the electronics wired, the rover is practically finished. All that remains is picking up a few extra Female-Male jumper wires to mount the ultrasonic sensors on my way to college today, and EcoRover will officially be ready for initial testing. (I’m too tired to put photos, so here’s red mike wazowski again

Devlog #6: Unboxing, Sawdust Wars, and Smoking Arduinos

– From Sep 17th to Sep 20th 2026 –

The last four days have been an absolute fever dream.

All 58 components finally arrived in one piece! Huge shoutout to the local sellers who threw in thank-you notes, a car freshener, and a random red Mike Wazowski figurine inside the box with the Arduino Mega. Unhinged, but cute.

Naturally, right as everything landed, my body hit peak flu with brutal bone aches. But I pushed through to start assembly and prep the updated BOM. I had to cover a few out-of-pocket expenses for miscellaneous screws and hinges I forgot to calculate 🤦🏻. Also the only 3mm plywood I could source on Amazon that fit the budget came in ~30x50cm sheets, so I’m building this first physical prototype using the raw panels as is while keeping core frame dimensions intact.

Later on, I decided to cut wood. Pro-tip: foldable handsaws are dangerous. I pressed the release button with my hand in the folding track. A quick flash of blood and a mini heart attack later, it stopped bleeding, thank God. Despite my clumsiness, I cut the middle layer outer shell, fridge frame, logic board mount, and lower latching mechanism.

I blacked out from exhaustion right after and woke up to an immediate eviction notice from my grandma: zero woodworking in the living room. I relocated my entire workshop out to the balcony. It’s actually a great setup, plus I’ve made friends with the local balcony mouse who hangs out while I work.

Despite the flu, I finished the chassis over 2 days, prepared doors/panels, and packed up the gear to move back inside.

I started assembling electronics by wiring the main power rail. Within an hour, I completely scorched my soldering iron tip 🙃. Since tips are super cheap in Egypt, I’m replacing it out of pocket. My cousin set up a meeting with an electrician friend for a masterclass, but he wasn’t much help so I figured it out on my own. Health-wise, the flu is receding. Personal life is at peak chaos, but thank god we manage 🤡.

Then came one of the most chaotic testing days yet. I built a 5V power distributor for the HC-SR04sensors, routing power through the Arduino Mega’s internal regulator to get 5V. Multimeter read a clean 5.0V. Pure satisfaction.

Then came the tragedy. While staring at my schematic to figure out the next step, I was holding the probe in my left hand. My hand drifted. The bare metal probe tip bridged the Arduino’s 5V pin and GND pin simultaneously.

Faint click. Scent of burnt toast.

I yanked the power cord instantly. Plugged back in, the board ran super hot. Multimeter showed the regulator blowing a raw 7V straight into the ATmega2560 chip. The brain of EcoRover was officially fried.

I spent 20-30 minutes in full despair, but thank god, what happened happened. I reached out to the Stardance grant reviewer to explain the short circuit. Worst case: I’ll fall back to my personal non-original Arduino Uno and figure out a massive GPIO multiplexing hack to run all 8 sensors and drivers on fewer pins. Best case scenario: They approve a $20 grant top-up for a replacement Mega so I can stay on schedule before the September 30 deadline.

To keep momentum, I tested the drive motors. My CAD planned for 2 L298Ns, but Gemini sayed using 1 driver and wiring motors in parallel for differential steering. I wired it, flipped the switch, and… total silence.

I panicked, thinking I blew the L298N driver. Swapped to my backup still zero power.

I probed the main power line: 0V. Then I checked the inline safety fuse I wired earlier. The fuse wire was completely snapped! It blew the microsecond it sensed the high amp spike from my reverse polarity mistake, saving both motor drivers from getting destroyed.

Seeing a safety feature you designed actually perform its job in real-time and save hardware from your own clumsiness is an unmatched feeling. I replaced the tiny car fuse, flipped the switch, and

Devlog #5: Funding Cleared, Amazon, and Currency stuff

– From Sep 1st to Sep 15th 2026 –

Today, the funding finally got approved!!!!!!

I woke up to absolute green lights and the best notification ever. Naturally, within 3 hours the money completely evaporated lol 😂. But honestly, two major roadblocks popped up back to back, only for one good fate to come through and overwrite all the stress thank god.

The first headache was payment processing. Future Electronics (who was supposed to be my primary supplier for the Arduino Mega and the main LiPo setup) doesn’t accept card payments. Then RAM Electronics whicj is my second biggest supplier, turned out not to accept foreign cards. Since the grant was issued as a virtual card, that meant zero local offline shops and zero local sites without online gateways.

So I had to pivot entirely to uncle Amazon who is slightly more expensive for a lot of things here, so I immediately googled "177 usd to egp". The conversion hit 9,158.42 EGP (which was wayyy higher than the original 8 grand budget I calculated weeks ago) i thought i’d need to cut corners but thank god the extra grand payed for the price difference!

For the first time in history the EGP dip against the USD actually worked in my favor. I didn’t just cover the costs I was fully prepared to start axing components from the build, but thank God, I didn’t have to cut a single thing. After checking out every single line item the project needed, the card balance is sitting clean at exactly $0.64 USD.

The order log is wild its 43 individual orders totaling 58 pieces, modules, and physical tools. Overall shipping added up to just under 5 bucks. The sheer dopamine hit of smashing that checkout button is still running high because lowkey this is officially the biggest Amazon order of my life. Deliveries start rolling in tomorrow (aka today cuz i still havent slept and its 0450am) and will keep trickling in over the next few days.

We also had to make two crucial hardware adjustments on the fly

• The LiPo Swap: The original LiPo battery plan had to go. Future was the only local vendor stocking the specific pack, they’re notoriously hazardous to ship/store, and finding proper balance chargers online locally was an absolute dead end. We’re swapping the primary power delivery to a safer, more accessible Lithium Ion setup.
• Card Only Sourcing: As mentioned, because this is an international card grant, any vendor without structured online payment processing had to be swapped out of the supply chain entirely.

I’m currently in the middle of rebuilding and restructuring the entire BOM to reflect the exact Amazon components, specs, and updated unit prices. I’ll push the updated BOM file directly to the GitHub repo as soon as it’s finalized.

Huge thanks again to Jay @ Stardance Hardware for helping clear the administrative loops and getting the grant active! <3

Immediate Action Plan

• Unbox and inspect all 58 individual components upon arrival over the next few days
• Complete the updated BOM spreadsheet with exact Amazon item links and prices
• Push the updated BOM.md and CAD changes to the main GitHub repository
• Lay out the real-world bench assembly and start initial power testing

Devlog #4: Funding Loops, Licensing Hassles, and a Huge Local Win

– From Jul 31st to Sep 1st 2026 –

Man, August was an absolute administrative marathon.

First came the banking wild goose chase. I went through the whole process of opening a brand new USD bank account in Egypt specifically to receive the project grant, only to find out right after activation that funding was being issued as a card grant anyway 🤡. Total facepalm moment, but a good reality check to stop making assumptions before jumping through hoops.

To make matters more frustrating, the grant review hit a few speedbumps. Stardance flagged my initial README as AI-generated and asked me to clean it up, fix my BOM pricing into USD, link standard STEP files, and push the initial firmware to the repo. I also ended up building off an open source obstacle detection script to get the base firmware pre release ready. Between waiting on grant replies, keeping up with these repo adjustments, and dealing with some heavy life updates floating in the background, things got pretty exhausting and its been already 8 days.

Luckily, the highlight of this entire month came from reaching out to VeryNile. If you don’t know them, they are a fantastic Egyptian initiative that cleans plastic waste from the Nile using local boats, pays local fishermen to collect the waste, and employs local women from Qorsaya island to upcycle that plastic into new materials. They have a CNC machine that engraves directly on their recycled plastic sheets.

Since our missions align so closely on sustainability and local impact, I wanted to collaborate with them on a custom plate for EcoRover that features our logos and a “Made in Egypt” emblem and some other logos. After a couple of calls with their team, Sama from VeryNile confirmed they would engrave and donate the custom plate for free! 🎉

with that the core design, licensing (CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 for the hardware assets via Zenodo -to get a DOI- and MIT for the code), and local partnerships are locked in.

Next up: picking up the custom plate from Qorsaya and starting physical assembly!

Devlog #3: Pivot, Wiring Struggles, and Learning the Hard Way
– From Aug 13th to Aug 18th 2026 –

Alr, a lot has happened since Devlog 2!

First off, I traveled back to Egypt on August 13th, and the internet here is honestly making video editing a whole mission. I was originally using Google Vids and its AI auto-trimmer to cut out silences from my documentary footage, but uploading massive video files to Drive here completely destroys the internet plan and takes forever. I tried switching over to Premiere Pro (which my laptop usually handles pretty well), but it started lagging badly and making my laptop run super hot. After wasting about 3 hours trying to get it to run smoothly with zero luck, I decided to completely pivot: I’m setting aside the documentary video for now and focusing on keeping a detailed journal.md directly in the GitHub repo instead, uploading as many progress time-lapses there as I can.

On the hardware side, I started modeling the electronics in Fritzing. Even though it’s only my second time using it, the connections are insanely annoying to trace out. I’m pretty sure some of the schematic lines look wrong on paper, but I have the whole circuit clear in my mind, so I just modeled it anyway to visualize the layout. I’ll make sure everything is hooked up correctly when I actually assemble the physical board.

I also finalized the Bill of Materials (BOM) and did some price comparisons across different stores. To keep things safe, I added a few crucial safety measures like an inline fuse and a rocker switch so nothing accidentally shorts out or catches fire.

Speaking of not blowing things up, I reached out to a fellow engineer, Mustafa Qasid (a mechatronics engineer and currently a B1 aircraft maintenance engineer at EgyptAir), to get his feedback on my circuit setup. Huge shout out to him! He was super supportive, though he made it clear he won’t give me direct shortcuts on the electronics. He wants me to learn through trial and error, but he promised he’d step in and tell me if anything I wired is genuinely dangerous or going to go kaboom. If it’s safe, he’s letting me figure out the best way on my own, which I really respect.

Next up, finishing the parts procurement and actually getting hands-on with the physical build. Thx for reading!

Devlog #2: The CAD Nightmare and the New Dimensions

– From jul 15 to jul 23rd 2026–
Alr this whole CAD thing is a total headache.

When I first started, Gemini suggested a 40x30cm footprint and 60cm height. I just started drawing it and didn’t notice it was way too short, making the trash compartment totally inaccessible and the fridge way too tiny. I didn’t notice till I was already cadding. Since 30x40cm is a good footprint, I decided to keep that but when I pulled out a physical tape measure and imagined the project I found myself bending over just to reach over that height! So, I pushed it up to 90cm, which feels much better. Gemini assumed I would use heavy materials, but I’m going lightweight, so Inshallah it won’t tip over.

Now the new dimensions are:

• Bottom tier: 10cm for the battery, motors and H bridges, and counterweights if needed.
• Middle tier: The fridge and logic board layer, now pushed from 35 to 45cm.
• Top tier: The trash compartment, changed to 35cm instead of 15cm so people can actually use it.

A quick heads up if you forgot. It’s a fancy trashcan after all, it has wheels and sensors and it’s gonna be wandering around in food courts with a built-in fridge. And it’s gonna store food leftovers. That way, whenever someone needs food, they can just take it without having to ask anyone, keeping their dignity completely intact. While still serving as a trashcan with 4 holes so it can be recycled later.

Back to the story XD: This was my first time ever cadding, so I drew everything in Photoshop first. Then I watched a 20 minute video and figured the rest out in Fusion 360 on my own. Fusion was pretty heavy for my laptop, so it was a nightmare when parts failed and I had to remodel them from scratch. And in the end when I was rendering it looked a bit weird but im not gonna change it cuz i’m exhausted tbh and my patience is running thin. Also during cadding, I added some access panels for maintenance and emergency latches in case god forbid we needed to kill the power.

As for the video, I decided not to script it word for word anymore, so I’m just running the camera and letting it happen.

Next up, I’m modeling the electronics in fritzing (which unlike fusion I know how to use) separately, updating the BOM, working on the GitHub repo, and finally editing the existing footage. Thx for reading

Devlog #1: Taking EcoRover Off the Slideshow

– jul 12th 2026 –
Let me be honest for a second. A while ago my school pressured me and my friends into entering a local hackathon. I had exactly 24 hours to brainstorm an idea, throw a team together, build a quick prototype, and set up a booth for the final judging visit.

I came up with a concept called EcoBot, which was a smart, autonomous recycling bin and bread leftovers collector designed for schools. On paper it was cool but in reality? It never actually got built. It lived and died on a slideshow to check a school box.

But I actually liked the concept. So for Stardance this summer I decided to bring it back and build it for real. Except this time there’s no rush, no team, and no cutting corners to pass a class. I’m going completely solo as EcoRover.

A quick BG about me:

I’m Mohamed Anber, an 18yo Egyptian teen who happened to join Stardance in the final year before I’m too old for it. For the last 3 years I’ve been volunteering as an EMR with the Saudi Red Crescent Authority and a Tech Dept. supervisor with the Egyptian Red Crescent. I’ve built some pretty cool projects before (u can check them out on my website btw: https://muhamedanber.space/) though none of them involved trying to keep bread fresh while driving a fancy motorized trash can around. We’ll try to make smth good.

🛠️ The new Blueprint & The Specs

I’ve changed the idea partially. It’s still a fancy trashcan after all, but instead of going around at schools, it’s gonna be for food courts with a built-in fridge. So instead of bread remainings, it’s gonna take food leftovers and save them. That way, whenever someone needs food, they can just take it without having to ask anyone, keeping their dignity completely intact.

I’m building a triple-decker chassis:

• Bottom tier: Handles the heavy power and movement.* Middle tier: Houses an insulated compartment kept cold by a Peltier cooling module to keep those leftovers fresh.* top tier: Handles sorting whatever thrown into to recycle later.

The Tabletop MVP Specs:

• The Brain: Arduino Mega 2560 (absolutely need the massive amount of IO pins).
• The Eyes: 4x HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Sensors mapped North, South, East, and West for 360° obstacle avoidance.
• The Muscle: 4x DC Yellow Smart Car Motors paired with dual L298N H-Bridge drivers. I wanted to go with mecanum wheels at first but it’s gonna be too much of a hustle rn, so we’re just doing differential drive.
• The Fridge: Since an actual 12V mini fridge is gonna be soo heavy, expensive and just not practical, I’m using a TEC1-12706 Peltier Thermoelectric Cooler switched via a 12V Relay module.

📹 Current Status

That’s pretty much everything I’ve got down so far. Plus, I’m working on a long video to document the whole journey, so I’ve already scripted and filmed the first part-ish.

Thx for reading this far, more updates soon!