It's driving me nuts. Our final project for our robotics class is to make a sumobot and my bot is working perfectly except for the fact that the motor (and "L" led) only moves when the battery is on and plugged in to laptop. It must be both, it cant be just the battery and and just the laptop. I use an L298N motor driver but my previous L1990s was also experiencing the same problems. When I test run it with both laptop and battery, it seems it can't carry its own weight even though my bot is quite light.
Schematics please.... and motor datasheet.
Man. That really sucks. How can we help? Would you like someone to look at a schematic and see if they can tell what might be wrong? 
I'm not sure what anyone can do just by knowing that something that they can't see and don't know anything about doesn't work.
Do you think you should be a little more descriptive? Is there more information you think you should supply?
Or do you just want someone to commiserate? I do that too. I hate when my robot doesn't work.
hello thank you for responding 
sorry for being a bit ignorant but what's a schematic? im really sorry this is my first time doing any major robots and our teacher doesn't really teach. Also what kind of description do you need? i'll provide anything for this thing to just work.
So you have a Teacher that is PAID to support and educate you? Why are you not asking them?
https://www.google.com/search?q=schematic
Basically someone needs to be able to see or at least know something about your robot in order to be able to help you. Just knowing that it doesn't work really there's nothing anyone can do.
they just tell us to figure it out on our own 
it's really frustrating trying to explain that i simply cant figure it out on my own. he also doesn't really teach, just gives us diagrams and stuff
super sorry i dont know how to do those diagrams thing-y im going to send pics too bc i really dont know sorryyy i tried my best making those please dont judge :((
The idea is to make a picture that shows what is connected to what. My 5 year old can do this. It doesn't have to be anything special, but you should try to make something that lets someone else know exactly how things are hooked up. There's not a set of rules about it really. You just have to really think about it.
my teacher said that the arduino's voltage intake or something isn't doing its work properly and needs extra power help. he strongly believes that the arduino is the one thats broken but i hope not. when it's only battery-supplied the LED's all light up except the "L" LED but when it is plugged in my computer it lights up, i dont know what it means but im going to mention it anyway because i think its suspicious. The 5v portion on the motor driver isn't used for some reason but i didn't try to move it since my teacher wired it.
i hope this is okay please tell me anything and thank you so much for being patient
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