Case study · HEIA-FR · Spring 2026
ROB Systems
A suspended robot that travels a rope on its own — climbing, descending and cruising like a self-propelled cable car. Built by eight mechanical and electrical engineering students in one semester.
- 1st
- Overall ranking — reliability, build quality, cost/performance
- 2nd
- In the final race at HEIA-FR
- A
- Final grade
The challenge
Build a robot that hangs from a rope and moves along it with no help: up steep climbs, down descents, and smoothly across flat sections, whatever the slope. The project ended with a competition at HEIA-FR on 19 June 2026.
Our guiding idea was deliberate simplicity: proven parts like the Raspberry Pi Pico and PETG over anything exotic, and a design that could reuse salvaged hardware — reliable first, sustainable too.
My contribution
I led the electrical team. On the management side, I ran the whole administrative part of the project: finances, hours tracking, the schedule and every component order.
At the same time I stayed hands-on: assembling and testing the electronic components, running the real mechanical-electrical tests with the team, and tracking down and fixing faults whenever something broke.
Inside the robot
Structure
About 85 % of the parts 3D-printed in PETG. Modular chassis, stainless-steel supports where loads are critical, weight kept to a minimum.
Control
Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller, protected motor drivers, and an HC-12 radio link at 433 MHz for remote commands.
Propulsion
A 6 V main motor with a gear reducer, giving enough torque to climb while keeping speed steady on the way down.
Performance
3.2 kg in total, 25 cm/s average speed along the rope. Prototype validated after integration and reliability tests.
See it move
The robot on the rope.
Timeline
- Jan — Feb 2026Design and kick-off — mechanical and electronic concepts validated
- Mar — 17 Apr 2026Prototyping
- 18 Apr — 13 May 2026Integration, testing and reliability
- 14 May — 5 Jun 2026Final optimisation and performance measurements
- 19 Jun 2026Final competition at HEIA-FR — 2nd in the race, 1st overall