Vedhathiri
Author
Kevin Coda of Concept Bytes Youtube channel built a tiny remote-controlled robot inside a poker chip for Mark Rober's CrunchLabs casino challenge. The project turns a standard poker chip into a miniature mobile robot that can move across a roulette table after receiving a wireless command. To make room for the electronics, the chip was hollowed out using CNC machining and its internal steel slugs were removed. The final design combines a custom PCB, 433 MHz RF receiver, coin-cell battery, four miniature vibration motors and four small rubber wheels inside the chip.
The motors are particularly interesting because they are tiny vibration motors commonly used in devices such as phones and pagers. Their small size allowed them to fit inside the extremely thin chip, but their low torque created a major mechanical challenge. The project reduced the force required to move the chip by removing material and using lightweight wheels. The first wheels were 3D printed with an FDM printer, but surface imperfections affected their movement, so the creator switched to resin-printed wheels for a smoother result. A custom PCB was then designed to replace the separate electronics and connect the wireless receiver with the motor-control circuitry. The PCB also incorporates the RF antenna.
One important limitation is that the robot is not autonomous. It does not use a camera, artificial intelligence or computer vision to identify the winning roulette position. Instead, the operator watches the roulette result and sends a command to the chip through the 433 MHz radio link, causing the four motors to move it to the required position. The project demonstrates how extreme miniaturization can combine mechanical machining, miniature motors, wireless electronics, custom PCB design and 3D-printed parts in a space only a few millimeters thick.
