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Step 5Making Ard-e sense the world with junk
So once you get Ard-e's DC motors controlled by the Arduino you can make Ard-e into a truly autonomous robot that is no longer tethered to a controller.
Like any autonomous robot though Ard-e is gonna need to have sensors so it can interact with its environment. Where are you going to get these sensors you ask? Your old pile of electronics junk that any maker has.
Ard-e should at least have all the basic senses that we humans have right? How are robots going to take over the world if they cant see or touch things?? Well at least four of the senses, since robots don't eat anything other than batteries i doubt they will need a sense of taste. So if you have a very extensive pile of junk electronics you can make Ard-e have these four senses with just a bit of recycling. If your junk pile isn't humongous then a few trips to radioshack and maybe a few orders from digikey or mouser should fix that.
One of the most important senses for Ard-e to have is touch. Ard-e needs to know when he runs into something, and an old mouse that just about everyone has laying around is perfect for harvesting the push-button switches that he needs to accomplish this. After opening up the mouse you merely unsolder the switches and solder some wires on in place. Careful with this step though... I melted one of the switches by holding the soldering iron on it for too long. To make these switches into a touch sensor for Ard-e I used a piece of scrap metal bent into a bump switch that can tell if Ard-e hits something on his right side or his left side. The metal is easy to work with and if you fold it over itself as you make the shape you need it becomes pretty strong. The pictures will hopefully help with this step.
To interface these switches with the Arduino so Ard-e can react when he bumps into something I ended up using them as a voltage divider to an analog input pin on the Arduino. I'm sure it would be just as easy to use them as digital inputs but I just could not write a program to get them to work as digital inputs. Im probably overlooking something really simple but whatever.
Heres a short video of Ard-e running into two obstacles (my fingers), if he hits it on his right side he will reverse turn to the left and go forward. If he hits it on his left side he will reverse turn right and go forward.
Ard-e now has the sense of touch! Now onto sight.
Like any autonomous robot though Ard-e is gonna need to have sensors so it can interact with its environment. Where are you going to get these sensors you ask? Your old pile of electronics junk that any maker has.
Ard-e should at least have all the basic senses that we humans have right? How are robots going to take over the world if they cant see or touch things?? Well at least four of the senses, since robots don't eat anything other than batteries i doubt they will need a sense of taste. So if you have a very extensive pile of junk electronics you can make Ard-e have these four senses with just a bit of recycling. If your junk pile isn't humongous then a few trips to radioshack and maybe a few orders from digikey or mouser should fix that.
One of the most important senses for Ard-e to have is touch. Ard-e needs to know when he runs into something, and an old mouse that just about everyone has laying around is perfect for harvesting the push-button switches that he needs to accomplish this. After opening up the mouse you merely unsolder the switches and solder some wires on in place. Careful with this step though... I melted one of the switches by holding the soldering iron on it for too long. To make these switches into a touch sensor for Ard-e I used a piece of scrap metal bent into a bump switch that can tell if Ard-e hits something on his right side or his left side. The metal is easy to work with and if you fold it over itself as you make the shape you need it becomes pretty strong. The pictures will hopefully help with this step.
To interface these switches with the Arduino so Ard-e can react when he bumps into something I ended up using them as a voltage divider to an analog input pin on the Arduino. I'm sure it would be just as easy to use them as digital inputs but I just could not write a program to get them to work as digital inputs. Im probably overlooking something really simple but whatever.
Heres a short video of Ard-e running into two obstacles (my fingers), if he hits it on his right side he will reverse turn to the left and go forward. If he hits it on his left side he will reverse turn right and go forward.
Ard-e now has the sense of touch! Now onto sight.
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Dec 4, 2010. 1:33 PM
lcona89
says:
lcona89
says:
Anybody know how this was interfaced as a voltage divide?
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