Most Collected: Blog entry

This is my first experiment with the MakerBot. I am totally thrilled with this machine!!!

SSS (servo suspension system) is designed to support standard servo motors and act as a basic suspension. It is still a work in progress and has not been tested yet.

Will update results as soon as possible (still waiting to have my lab back).


I would like to know everyone's opinion on this  :)

My XMOS entry was to create tutorials that not only taught how to use the XMOS but also lead up to explaining complicated robotic principles as well as good coding standards. So far I have been trying to figure out what to make a tutorial about. Below is my list which I will add or subtract from depending on the XK1's capabilities and the complexity of the tutorial.

2009-11-29

Basic principles in PCB design

Surprise packages from around the world!

 As usual I have been slack and not keeping this blog up to date, usually because nothing happened. Late January I received a surprise package from America! Stevek had sent me a Tyco rebound to play with. These are a great little 4WD cars with a perfect chassis to make an offroad robot with.

 "Wiieasy Rider" Nunchuck /Arduino hack controlling Tamiya Off-Road Car

Update :- Field Testing in the "Car Park"

                  >>> Car Park Video of it in Action at end of Blog <<<

Goal:- Hack a Tamiya Off-Road RC car - and control it with Wii-Nunchuck controller

Why:- Its cheap and better and more fun way to control RC cars/boats & maybe planes

31-5-2009

The last 6 months of my life have been full of ups and downs. I have been on workcover for the last 6 months for an injury I sustained at work. This gave me the time to discover LMR and make new friends (and robots). Thanks to LMR, Jack from DAGU discovered me and is now producing not only my robots but will soon produce other robots from other builders at LMR.

Well I've decided to replace my 2.4 ghz wireless camera on Ardbot with this guy:

JPEG Color Camera - UART Interface

While it isn't as capable as the video camera I had planned to use, it has the advantage of having a serial interface that can communicate with the Arduino, uses 3.3v, so my hope is to be able to stream the JPEG images via XBEE to my PC.

Read this history first, if you have an hour to kill.

The challenge: make your bot rove around your house. Use no active beacons. Use observations by your bot only. Now, does your bot know where it is?

One possible answer: an eye and a brain.

Room Recognition

Each room in the house has a unique lighting situation. A simple eye that looks around in eight directions would "see" a pattern of light and dark segments. Each cell is connected to one ADC on your uC.

Basically I just printed out one of these (laser printer recommended):

...And attached it to a wheel (double sided tape recommended).

Then I hooked up one of these (a 2$ IR sensor: QRB1134):

...And attached it to the motor pointing towards the wheel.

I made a battery charger with some free samples of the maxim max713 chip.

Maxim home page.

Chip details.

Datasheet.

Search for samples.

Hi Folks,

 today,  LMR's first Birthday,  you've all discovered the new LMR logo

Fritsl had the very good idea of a logo kit, available to everybody.

here it is   http://users.skynet.be/fa953029/LMR_logo_kit.zip

it contains various sizes of the logo, in color, grayscale, black/white   (biggest is 4000x1000pixel)

What happens when you put a laser scanner on a quad flying platform -> here

Just what I need for around the house.

(Update: Some time after writing the below, I made this, that may interest people doing navigation with Picaxe)

How to make a robot do complicated tasks & "act alive".. With ease..

Here is one guys humble input - I am sure you all have your own ways of programming. Just take it for what it is; My personal thoughts, use what you can :)

Aim of Project :- Transmit via RF remote values of Temparature & Humidity to a LCD display.

Why:- because i have always dreaded sending floating point values to a LCD display and

wanted to carve it in stone for other projects i have lined up.

& Why :- RF Links are just so cool 8-P        500ft range is not to be sneezed at......

My laser range finder got a lot of interest so I thought I'd try to explain it in more detail.

It's not finished yet as it still needs to be mounted on it's stepper motor with a home position switch.

The sensor side has been tested on an oscilliscope. When I moved my hand in front of it, the pulse width varied to match.  Below is a diagram showing how the sensor works.

Yay, I finally am getting to work on my XMOS project. I've had a three foot stick of 1/2" x 3/4" aluminum angle stock for weeks now. Today I lopped two six inch lengths off, nibbled out some pockets for the servo housings, and drilled em. Reall impressive, eh? ;) At least it's moving along again.

Modified continuous-rotation servos are used extensively by roboticists due to their small form-factor, enclosed motor-gearbox, ease of mounting and high-availability. Some users keep the original drive electronics and the potentiometer feedback element but this approach allows for limited position control and velocity control / profiling. Others tend to remove them and use external control/drive boards and custom-made encoders. Ideally one would prefer to have the feedback element and the new drive electronics enclosed inside the servo.