Icebox Robot (coolerbot?)

By grog @ Fri, 2008-04-11 04:28

• Actuators / output devices: 3 dc motors 1 cordless screwdriver
• Control method: wireless network teleoperated from keyboard through netmeeting
• CPU: pentium 75 mhz
• Operating system: windows 98
• Power source: 12 v agm battery
• Programming language: C (old school)
• Sensors / input devices: video camera, very loud car speaker, microphone
• Target environment: office

Unfortunately, this is the amount of documentation I have left of this project. It was a robot constructed from a thrown away icebox cooler. It ran windows 98 on a donated 75 mhz pentium. Since windows 98 was still dos at heart you could still use outb & inb functions. Now, I use Linux exclusively. It had wireless, so one day I left it at work and tele-operated it from my home. I used net-meeting to see where it was and a mic to scare co-workers into submission. bwah ha ha ha.

4 motors on the robot, steering, power, camera up/down, camera arm swivel. This only took 8 bits off the parallel port. If you look close you can see a wicked car speaker. It was like a PA system. I could hear, talk and see my terrified co-workers. Notice the black motor sticking up from the base behind the speaker. Its a cordless drill wired to the battery, controled by the parallel port.

Unfortunately, after all the electronics, motors and other crud was crammed in - there was no room for beer.