Homepage | S.A.R.T.

The Project

The S.A.R.T. is designed as a disposable, rapidly manufactured and cheap remote inspection vehicle that can be deployed in any situation where it is difficult or dangerous to send in human personnel. From search and rescue to disaster response to inspection of tunnels and pipelines, S.A.R.T. robots are equipped with arrays of sensors and cameras to report the situation to personnel on the scene.

Open Source

The S.A.R.T. project is completely open source. All our code and design files, as well as tutorials and useful information is available on our website, GitHub and Thingiverse. By keeping the project open, we hope to faciliate the development of rapidly manufactured first response robots worldwide, contributing to the global goal of saving lives.

S.A.R.T Interface

The S.A.R.T robot is controlled via a dashboard called the S.A.R.T Interface. Features include multiple video streams, providing a 360° view, live sensor data including thermal imagery, direct access to the robot through SSH console, and much more. Users never have to access the S.A.R.T hardware directly – everything can be done within the interface. See the demo here!

Complete Documentation

We provide extensive documentation on all our design and construction processes when it comes to coding, modelling, building, and coming up with new ideas. You could build your own S.A.R.T simply using the information provided in our daily blog.

Also available is the comprehensive 2020 Q1 S.A.R.T. TDM.

The Future

We have many plans to expand the versatility of the S.A.R.T robot. We are creating a “base model” that other people can develop on top of thanks to our Open Source philosophy.

Awards & Recognition

We often enter our robots in competitions such as RoboCup. We have received awards and recognition for a number of achievements and advances.

Tied 1^st Place – Rapidly Manufactured Rescue League, RoboCup 2016, Leipzig, Germany
1^st Place – Rapidly Manufactured Rescue League, RoboCup 2017, Nagoya, Japan
Open Source Award – Rapidly Manufactured Rescue League, RoboCup 2017, Nagoya, Japan
Open Source and Innovation Award – Rapidly Manufactured Rescue League, RoboCup 2018, Montréal, Canada

Partners

Diamond Sponsor

Silver Sponsors

Partners

Specifications

S.A.R.T Mark IV

Drive System	2x Dynamixel AX-18A Servo
Computational Unit	NVIDIA Jetson Nano
Central Processor	Quad-core ARM A57 @ 1.43 GHz
Onboard Storage	microSD
RAM	4 GB 64-bit LPDDR4
Camera System	3x ELP 5MP HD USB Camera 1x Pimoroni MLX90640 Thermal Camera
Mapping System	LDS-01 LIDAR Laser Distance Sensor
Additional Sensors	Air Quality (VOC and eCO2), Temperature
Human Communication	Two-way Stereo Audio
Manipulator	60 cm Arm & Claw, 4 Degrees of Freedom
Control System	S.A.R.T. Interface (Keyboard, Controller)

S.A.R.T Mark III

Drive System	4x Dynamixel AX-18A Servos
Computational Unit	UDOO x86 Ultra
Central Processor	Intel Pentium N3710 @ 2.56GHz x4
Onboard Storage	32GB Integrated eMMC
RAM	8GB
Camera System	4x ELP 5MP USB Camera, 1x Thermal Camera
Mapping System	4x Adafruit VL53L0X Time-Of-Flight Sensor
Additional Sensors	Air Quality (VOC and eCO2), Temperature
Human Communication	Two-way Audio
Control System	S.A.R.T. Interface

S.A.R.T Mark II

Drive System	4x Dynamixel AX-18A Servos
Computational Unit	Intel NUC NUC5CPYH
Central Processor	Intel Celeron N3050 @ 2.16GHz x2
Onboard Storage	120GB SAMSUNG SSD
RAM	4GB
Camera System	oCam 5MP USB 3.0 Camera
Mapping System	4x SHARP GP2Y0A21YK0F Infared Sensor
Additional Sensors	Temperature, Accelerometer, Compass
Human Communication	Text to Speech, Speech to Text
Control System	S.A.R.T. Interface

S.A.R.T Mark I

Drive System	4x Dynamixel AX-12A Servos
Computational Unit	Raspberry Pi 3
Onboard Storage	32GB SD
RAM	1GB
Camera System	Raspberry Pi Camera Board
Control System	PlayStation Controller

Our Team

Graham Stock

2017 - Present

Graham Stock is the Design and Technologies Coordinator at St Francis Xavier College. He coordinated the 2017 SFX RoboCup trip - everything from itinerary to budget.

More recently, Graham lead a project to start up an SFX Makerspace for all students, which provides useful tools and machinery that the team doesn't usually have easy access to.

"Everything is Physics." - Graham Stock

Gerard Elias

2015 - Present

As the mentor and treasurer for the team, Gerard keeps everyone on track and looks at the cheaper options for the robot. He spends most of his time updating the team on new products and research in the area of technology and robotics

The team owes its creation to Gerard, who approached Aaron, Jack, Matthew, Riley and Ryan with the original Rapidly Manufactured Rescue League design brief in 2015.

"The Boss" - Gerard Elias

Connor Kneebone

2018 - Present

Connor was the team leader and main software engineer for the team during 2018. With his experience in Python, C++, web design and Linux, he programmed and managed the software on both the robot and the control panel.

Connor is now completing a Bachelor of Engineering and a Bachelor of Business Administration at the ANU. He is an official mentor for the current S.A.R.T. team and worked closely with them in preparation for RoboCup Sydney 2019. His knowledge of the robot and the competition has allowed the new team to develop an even more innovative robot than the year before.

"I’m a reasonable man, get off my case" - Connor Kneebone

Martin Hosking

2019 - Present

Martin is the main driver as well as one of the robot designers and builders on the team. He designs 3D models and parts for the robot using Fusion 360 and puts those pieces of the robot together. He also manages the general maintenance of the robot and was the driver in Sydney, 2019.

"Quotes are for nerds" - Martin Hosking

Nathaniel Kneebone

2019 - Present

Nathaniel is one of the main 3D CAD designers for the S.A.R.T. In his spare time, Nathaniel likes to work on smaller projects with Arduinos and Raspberry Pis. He also spends a lot of time annoying his older brother, Connor. Nathaniel specialises in Fusion 360 and is an expert in Microsoft Paint.
Nathaniel is hoping to learn more about robotics and coding throughout the years with the S.A.R.T team.

“People say nothing’s impossible, but I do nothing everyday” - Nathaniel Kneebone

Dominic Ferraris

2019 - Present

Dominic is a learning programmer who is currently working with Michael to implement autonomy on the robot. He started learning about ROS (Robot Operating System) and SLAM at the RoboCup 2019 International competition and has taken a keen interest in making the robot autonomous. Dominic also happens to be a master procrastinator.

Dominic hopes to develop his programming and problem solving skills while he is apart of S.A.R.T.

"Leave me alone, I'm sleeping" - Dominic Ferraris

Joshua McWilliam

2020 - Present

Joshua is a developing programmer who has previous experience with robotics. He aims to develop his skills in ROS and continue to work on the vision programing that was left by Anthony. Joshua will be working closely with Dom to allow the robot to navigate autonomously.

"Can I make something hotter by making it colder, sir?" - Joshua McWilliam

Andrew Mackerras

2020 - Present

Andrew Mackerras is the senior Digital Technologies teacher at St Francis Xavier College since 2018, and has now taken on an official mentor role for the S.A.R.T team. Focussing on programming and software, Andrew is helping to fully integrate mapping and hazard detection into the Mark (what number are we up to again?).

"Yeah I do really need to get onto Mattermost, don't I?" - Andrew Mackerras

S.A.R.T. Alumni

Erin Biskup

2018

Erin is our 3D designer who creates and improves parts for our robot. She has an extensive knowledge of Blender and Autodesk Inventor and knows several languages such as Italian, German and Japanese. She is the brains behind a number of our mechanical designs including the wheel systems.

She often has ideas on improving the robot that somehow no one else even considered. Contains such ideas in a mythical orange folder hidden somewhere in a faraway place. Secretly also a dragon.

"If no one comes from the future to stop you from doing something, then how bad of a decision can it really be?" - Erin Biskup

Michael Cavalli

2019

Michael is a programmer specialising in ROS (Robot Operating System) and SLAM (Simultaneous Localisation And Mapping). ROS will allow the robot to organise and utilise the information from the sensors and, with SLAM, make a map that the robot will be able to navigate autonomously.

Michael hopes to learn more about coding and IT during his time in the S.A.R.T.

"Yes" - Michael Cavalli

Riley Cockerill

2015 - 2017

Riley is one of the primary builders, building the robot and printing some of the parts needed to improve and modify the design.

His job is to know the mechanical aspects of the robot. He also works as a team mechanic, making sure that everything is properly secured and placed before going into competition.

Riley is the "man of the people" and often acts as an intermediary and representative for the team with other teams and officials at RoboCup.

Riley is now applying the technical and team skills he developed during his time in the Semi Autonomous Rescue Team in his work as a lighting tech at Empire Theatre, Toowoomba

"She'll be right" - Riley Cockerill

Charlotte Drury

2019

Charlotte is the unwitting team leader. Her expertise lies in external hardware and design. She mainly works individually and with Martin on developing new and improved designs.

Charlotte has the annoying, though sometimes helpful habit of second guessing near every decision of both herself and others. These doubts are almost always voiced with the same phrase.

Charlotte hopes that the unique persons and talents of the new S.A.R.T. will help her to improve her skills and develop new ones.

"Hang on" - Charlotte Drury

Kyle Ewyk

2018

Kyle is the materials specialist and programmer. He's responsible for moulding and creating the tires used on the Mark III. He also works on the programming behind the autonomous intelligence and image recognition. He has knowledge in Java, C# and Python. Kyle happens to be great at fixing things, he is the counterpart to Ben, who is great at breaking things. They form a cycle of eternal balance.

He’s basically the maintenance man. He is also the only one with a good relationship with the school IT support department.

"Disregard females, acquire currency" - Kyle Ewyk

Ryan Ewyk

2015 - 2017

Ryan is one of the programmers. He works mostly with the programming behind the intelligence of the robot. He has a background in Java, C# and Python, and is slowly learning C++. He works almost exclusively on programming the robot to function, including everything from movement to sensors.

In previous versions of the S.A.R.T, Ryan has helped set up the wheels for control through both the Dynmaxiel and through Arduino as well as creating python scripts to allow a PlayStation controller to interact with the Arduino, controlling the wheels.

"Rats! My plan has been foiled again!" - Ryan Ewyk

Anthony Gambale

2019

Anthony is one of the programmers on the team. He works mainly on vision, processing the video feed through the robot's cameras into useful information. He is interested in machine learning and hopes to implement simple learning algorithms in the robot's image recognition.

He will also have to tinker with ROS when the time comes to move vision functionality from his laptop to the robot. He has experience with Python and basic C#.

Anthony has hopes to take his experience into data science and machine learning in the future.

"Everyone has strong nuclear force in them" - Anthony Gambale

Ben Hallett

2018

Ben is our 3D printing expert and the jack of most trades, he usually does a fine job, but never without breaking something along the way. Ben is generally in charge of communication with the higher-ups, including ordering parts and apologizing to them when he breaks said parts. Not only can he break important objects but, although a rarity, he can replace and fix things that he didn't even break in the first place. His knowledge of general hardware and his abundance of free time has led to much progress in a short amount of time.

Ben is currently on a gap year working at KJR, a job he got as a result of his work with S.A.R.T. He has been accepted into a Bachelor of Information Technology at the University of Canberra.

"Not with that attitude it isn’t" - Ben Hallett

Aaron Maggs

2015 - 2017

Aaron’s main area of expertise is networking. His research has allowed the team to connect to the Raspberry Pi over Wi-Fi and Ethernet using the SSH protocol, saving a lot of time. More recently, he administrates the Xirrus access point and the Windows Server/DHCP Server laptop that forms the backbone of the S.A.R.T Network.

Aaron often communicates ideas between the team and the staff at St Francis Xavier College, including arranging the purchase of items for the team with Gerard and Peter and acquiring the latest technology from the IT department. Aaron now manages the backend of the SFX Rescue website by keeping everything up-to-date, including MySQL and basic HTML.

Aaron is now following his passion of Networking by doing a Certificate III in Information, Digital Media, and Technology at CIT. He is also doing networking at Cisco Networking Academy. He plans to follow that up with a Certificate 4 and finally a diploma. Aaron is still managing the S.A.R.T website with his free time. Currently, Aaron is a Technical Consultant at a local IT company. Aaron also helps out the S.A.R.T team in his free time.

"It's fine, I'm fine, everything's fine, thanks for asking" - Aaron Maggs

Matthew Pham

2015 - 2017

Matthew is an experienced IT teacher at St Francis Xavier College who has contributed tips and ideas to the coding of the S.A.R.T robot. His expertise in Python has helped the team design algorithms for control systems for the S.A.R.T v2.

Matthew is still committed and passionate about teaching all things related to Information Technology, albeit at Canberra Grammar School, where he is busy assisting the next generation of Code Cadets. He has not forgotten about SFX or the S.A.R.T. and occasionally takes some time to keep in touch and provide moral support and guidance to the current S.A.R.T. team.

"Let me get my second breakfast" - Matthew Pham

Jack Williams

2015 - 2017

Jack is one of the team's programmers. As the creator of the S.A.R.T interface, he specialises in web, including frontend languages such as HTML and CSS, and backend languages such as Javascript and PHP, although he is also proficient in Python and Java. His current project is the S.A.R.T Control Panel, a briefcase computer used to control the S.A.R.T. Jack has completed an Engineering course at the Australian National University, which allows him to bring new skills and ideas to the team in the areas of design, 3D printing, electronics and coding.

Jack keeps everyone up-to-date with frequent additions to the team documentation, and more recently, the website blog.

Jack is now completing a Bachelor of Engineering and a Bachelor of Information Technology at the ANU. He is still managing the S.A.R.T. website and continues to contribute to the team's open-source software.

"My point is your point is pointless" - Jack Williams

Matthew Williams

2015 - 2017

Matthew is the main robot designer and creates the parts to be 3D printed in Google Sketchup Make. He incorporates input from all other areas and fits everything into a chassis that is as small as possible. This way, many design iterations of the robot can be conceptualised without the large amounts of time necessary for 3D printing, only to find that something doesn’t fit or is inaccessible. Matthew has completed an Engineering course at the Australian National University, which allows him to bring new skills and ideas to the team in the areas of design, 3D printing, electronics and coding.

Matthew is the team mechanic, keeping the robot at peak performance during competition with everything from reapplying plasti-dip to dismantling the entire robot to clean the wheels.

Matthew is now completing a Bachelor of Engineering and a Bachelor of Information Technology at the ANU.

"Shut the damn door" - Matthew Williams

S.A.R.T. Development Blog

•July 14, 2022•S.A.R.T.

Flexo’s (A)live 🔥🥶💯👌

song recommendation of the day: Take on Me – a-ha Today was our final day of adventure in Thailand. We livestreamed our performance today and here are our results compared to yesterdays recorded runs. (Recorded | Live) center: 76 |60...

•July 13, 2022•S.A.R.T.

Flexo’s getting heated 🥵 -winter temps rising in Canberra 🙄🥱

Song recc: Steal my girl – One Direction Second blog of the day – on that grind Its getting hot in here!!! Flexo got a little hot under its hood! with CPU temps getting towards the 89 degree mark we...

•July 13, 2022•S.A.R.T.

FLEXO destroys practice day

PREP & PRACTICE DAY! song recommendation of the day: Last Resort – Papa Roach Per yesterdays results, Flexo had DESTROYED the tracks, DEMOLISHED the time, and had a dashing time with benders girlfriend 😃 The S.A.R.T teams YouTube page provides...

•July 12, 2022•S.A.R.T.

Our first day in Thailand ! (not really 😢) – Bender’s arch nemesis cancels Thailand trip 😫

Hi everyone!!!!! song recommendation of the day: Nutcracker – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Today is set-up day! We are in Thailand as we speak 😃 (just kidding) Bender’s arch nemesis FLEXO has made its debut in the SART location (in Australia😥)....

•June 24, 2021•Jack Williams

UBECcer Watch Out

Over the past few days we’ve made some exciting locomotion advancements. Connor created Sights motor wrapper plugins for RoboClaw and Roboteq motor controllers, Alex authored a new servo controller for the arm, and Jack jerry-rigged a system to run multiple...

•June 24, 2021•Jack Williams

Target Translation

On Tuesday evening we had our first test of the new S.A.R.T. Series M robot with all systems functioning at the same time. During our tests we noticed some of the arm positions caused unnecessary strain on the servos, so...

•June 24, 2021•Matthew Williams

Using Hardware Acceleration in VNC

‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ I’d like to slightly modify that statement to ‘Any solution to a technology problem that works for an inexplicable reason is indistinguishable from magic’. Here’s why: The S.A.R.T. recently acquired a pair...

•June 24, 2021•Matthew Williams

Extracting a floor plan from a ZED Mini model using Blender

One of the requirements for the Major competition is to generate a top-down floor plan of the room in which the test takes place. Ideally, this would happen automatically, however until we get that working we can use the exported...

•June 23, 2021•Cooper Kingston

Unbending Bender

Today I worked mostly on testing and familiarizing myself with our development robot, which we as a team named ‘Bender’. To begin the day, I began driving Bender through our various practice courses whilst only navigating using the cameras. I...

•June 23, 2021•Xavier Gadzinski

Moving 4ward

Big success today as part of our community outreach program “S.A.R.T. Junior”, we got 4 motors working at once with a H bridge and a Raspberry Pi. This simplified system was created to assist with new teams entering the rapidly...

•June 22, 2021•Matthew Williams

Nvidia Jetson Nano with Intel Wireless AC PCIe WiFi

Here’s how we got our Jetson Nano working reliably with an Intel Wireless AC 3165 PCIe WiFi card. This post outlines the steps someone else used to solve this issue on the Nvidia developer forums, but the solution was spread...

•May 13, 2021•Graham Stock

UNLIMITED POWER!

For years, power has always been something we have constantly been seeking to improve. Most robots and other remote/portable applications utilise LiPo batteries. While flexible and providing lots of power in a small package, LiPo batteries do have a lot...

•February 11, 2021•Graham Stock

S.A.R.T.ing forward – powered by Dell Technologies

Moving away from the challenging year that 2020 was for us all, S.A.R.T. was very fortunate to get the opportunity to partner with Dell Technologies to power our efforts moving into 2021. As a part of our partnership, Dell have...

•December 12, 2020•Matthew Williams

S.A.R.T. Through The Ages Part Trois: The Renaissance

It was July of 2016, and by our rough calculations we had about twelve months to develop a reliable robot for the competition the next year in Nagoya, Japan. We briefly discussed developing the robot out of a new material,...

•December 11, 2020•Matthew Williams

S.A.R.T. Through The Ages Part The Second: The Dark Ages

Alex had returned from China with a plethora of ideas for potential improvements to the platform we were developing on, including both the hardware and software side of the robot. Ryan and Jack began working on what would eventually become...

•December 10, 2020•Matthew Williams

S.A.R.T. Through The Ages Part 1: The Medieval Era

Greetings, everyone. It’s been a while since I wrote a blog, I don’t think I’ve posted a blog since I became a member of the esteemed club known as the S.A.R.T. Alumni. I thought, with the introduction of a generation...

•March 20, 2020•Connor Kneebone

S.A.R.T. Team Description Materials for Q1 2020

Authors: Connor Kneebone, Alexander Cavalli, Jack Williams, Matthew Williams, Graham Stock, Charlotte Drury, Anthony Gambale, Michael Cavalli, Nathaniel Kneebone, Martin Hosking, Alexander Thorning Published: 20th of March, 2020 Abstract The Semi-Autonomous Rescue Team (herein known as the S.A.R.T.) is a...

•February 22, 2020•Connor Kneebone

A ‘Wheely’ Good Day Pt. IV

The wheels we made for the Mark III robot did pretty well. The new polyurethane tires were excellent, they had plenty of grip, were basically indestructible and they maintained their grip over many hours of use. The hubs worked pretty...