a BoeBot with no name

By ndupont
@ Sat, 2008-11-15 01:16

roam with no specific goal...

Actuators / output devices: futaba servos (parallax branded)
Control method: autonomous / IR remote / PC / Microsoft Excel
CPU: Basic Stamp
Power source: 5x AA 1.2V
Programming language: pbasic 2.5
Sensors / input devices: IR, Line sensor with 4 IR photodiodes, Parallax Ping))), hitachi compass
Target environment: indoor

Attachment	Size
PC014951.JPG	1.91 MB
PC014952.JPG	1.87 MB
BoeBot_Connection.xls	76.5 KB

Second-hand BoeBot

With the whole 2K eeprom and the luxury 13 words RAM

Fitted with the Ping, a compass, the quad QTI kit (2 used as kindof wheels encoders)

+ all the std Parallax accessories

Currently just roaming, go to the nearest object, and trying to track with the ping

update: now with IR Remote Control (don't know yet what it could be used for...)

update: new ultrasound cartography (uses trigonometry to calculate distances between multiple objects)

update: new 'go to the closest object' algorithm using the compass

update: now controlled by Microsoft Excel --> "ping grapher" to discover that the Ping))) should wear some glasses (see 4th video) (connection with mscomm32.ocx) // OCX and XLS file (attached)

to use the XLS file, first find and register the MSCOMM32.OCX file

By OddBot
@ Sat, 2008-11-15 02:52

I don't know what a "Boe

I don't know what a "Boe bot" is but it looks like it has potential, very clean setup with plenty of room for extras.

By smartpartzzkidd
@ Wed, 2008-12-17 01:23

BOE

BOE, stands for Board Of Education, it is a protoboard from parallax that will work with all basic stamps bs2 forward, and the Javelin stamp

Its very useful, Ill post some of my creations with the BOE at school

By GroG
@ Sat, 2008-11-15 05:00

Great start !, more video !

Great start !, more video ! .. I mean some video !

Whats a QTI Kit?

GroG

By ndupont
@ Sat, 2008-11-15 16:19

Hi All, thanks for your

Hi All,

thanks for your welcome and enthousiasm

So, the QTI's are line following IR sensors from parallax,

I've fitted two on the front (can serve as "I won't crash from the table to the ground" system)

or just follow some lines, or even get stuck on the checker pavement in my kitchen

and I've fitted the two others behind the wheels, and added some white adhesive tape stripes

The latter allowing the Bot to go staight-on without curving

My current programs are

-- roam in the room using the Ping))

-- find the nearest object distance and angle, use the compass to align, compute the distance in 1/8th of wheel turns, align the wheels .. and GO !

By robologist
@ Sat, 2008-11-15 09:19

All together now!

" I been writing Basic on a Bot with no name, it felt good to be out of sensor range..."

"Writing Basic, you can remember the line, cause there ain't no one for to give you no time "

..sung to the chorus of Americas "Horse with no Name"

By Mr Clean
@ Sat, 2008-11-15 09:32

You didn't need that last

You didn't need that last line ... I got it right away. :P

By OddBot
@ Wed, 2008-12-03 13:46

MS Office VS Open office

I'm interested in your use of excel, any idea of compatability with open office?

By ndupont
@ Wed, 2008-12-03 14:07

serial port in OO.org

it seems that an alternative solution would be to use the filesystem object

http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=682&p=43434

Sub Main

oFSO = createUnoService("com.sun.star.bridge.OleObjectFactory").createInstance("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

f = oFSO.OpenTextFile("COM1:9600,N,8,1", 1) 'for Reading
' f = oFSO.OpenTextFile("COM1:9600,N,8,1", 2) 'for Writing
' f.write("abc")
f.close

End Sub

Which reminds me C and the way linux accesses the devices

and even years before I went to that.. the way GWBASIC was using the serial ports

I'll give a try with my opensuse linux laptop.

By OddBot
@ Wed, 2008-12-03 15:08

GWBASIC

Ah, those were the days! My first language. I have an Asus Eee PC 4G kneetop that uses Linux. I was going to convert it to windows but if you can advise me on using linux with picaxe IC's...

By ndupont
@ Wed, 2008-12-03 15:38

some Wine ? even not needed

my first thought was my good ol' friend WINE (www.winehq.org)

but the guys at Picaxe seem to have a solution for you : AXEpad, that looks like a Java based IDE for picaxe

By OddBot
@ Wed, 2008-12-03 15:41

Bonza!

Cool, I'll look into it :D

By mintvelt
@ Wed, 2008-12-03 21:48

Alas

Alas. AxePad wont be available for another 2 months.

I switched to the command line compiler for the Mac, which is also available for linux. It is a bit strange that some programs that were converted from windows (you have to replace the CR LF with LF only) wont run. But it beats the hell out of running windows on a virtual machine just for the picaxe. Also. I don't have the stability or timing problems on the serial cable that I had when running in a VM.

By mintvelt
@ Wed, 2008-12-03 21:55

Cute bot. He looks really

Cute bot. He looks really botty.

Good videos too. And I like the excel solution for the mapping.

By ndupont
@ Wed, 2008-12-03 23:01

Thanks ;) - More fun video are coming...

...soon on LMR

Just a sneak preview

By ndupont
@ Thu, 2008-12-04 01:02

Now connected to my cellphone

...just connected to my cellphone...

actually just copied the excel macro to an asp page..

source code is here :

http://users.skynet.be/fa953029/boebot.asp.txt