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Robots: -Can hear or see, or both - kinda -Are strong, but break easily -Can robot dance The goal here is to build a robot, that is like a robot. It...
This is the kind of robot that runs on motors. Little robots can use servo motors, which makes motor control simple. But big servos are expensive. S...
So this what I am good at - taking things apart. (in high school, do they still tell kids that if they are good at math and like to take things apart...
Well done. Now, what do we have here? Well, we have the parts that make a cordless drill do what a cordless drill does. - Motor (with gear box and a...
So that worked well - nothing can stop us now! err.. Remember that big mechanical switch that controlls the motor direction? Not me. I confidently...
Use servos to create a cheap but heavy duty direction switcher (in this case, a DPDT relay --- sort off)
mmmm.... cake
Now that we've had a snack. Let's work on the mechanical robot parts. What do we want to move? - Arms, starting with the shoulders - Whe...
Mounting a motor can be easy, hard, or somewhere in between. Plumbers Strap: I like to use metal plumbers strap to mount motors - cheap and easy. H...
Mount two drills for the wheels. Then find something to use for wheels. I'm using circles cut out of some MDF using a 4" hole saw. Using 1/4"-2...
Now, lets mount some arm motors. I am using #2 conduit clamps to hold the motors. A bent steel rod serves as a temporary arm.
As you can see in the pictures, there is a basic scrap-wood structure that we are building. No real plan here, just need a place to put everything. ...
The motor will need to take some weight. We will also want to be able to leave it in a fixed position (such as upright), without having to keep power...
Meet up with your brother Tom and play some theromones
That was fun. Now lets take a minute to put the cardboard pieces on to see if this is going to work out. Man - this is a long instructable.... isn...
This is as far as I had planned. So I do not know what to do next. It is clear that unless we can run these motors, we don't have a robot. Speed co...
After some small fires - we have a workable solution. Cofrol the stock (original or 'as purchased') switch witha cheap little servo. These are havea ...
//////////////ARDUINO CODE//////////////////////// ////////////////TEST CODE //////////////// ////////////////MOTOR SPEED CH...
Here is a much better way to control the motor direction -- ahhhh -- I seem to have lost all the build photos -- I will have to come back and fill th...
Here are additional photos of the assembled driver boards.
Wire the 18V battery to the motor drives - and wire the motor drivers to the motors. For this I used the cords from wall-warts. I have a big box of ...
Next - get the 5Volt supply to all the drivers. For this I've used more zip cords from wall-warts. All 5volt inputs are connected. All grounds ar...
Wire the motor driver boards to the arduino. So - we have already brought the 5V and Grounds from the arduino to the relay boards, all that is left a...
Firmata is a very useful tool for testing out hardware. It is software that lets you control the arduino from a PC pretty easily. There are at least ...
With everything wired together and tested with Firmata control, we can now take a first stab and some autonomy. On the robot scale of autonomy (which ...
Using pieces of rubber inner-tube to pad the motors helps to reduce noise and vibrations - a little. Some motors fit inside the inner-tube, like this...
The left shoulder was built with just go up and down. We can do slightly better by building a super hinge, out of two hinges. Goal is to get up/down ...
Now - hook it all up to a motor via a threaded rod Attach everything with motor loose Raise and lower arm to find good motor position M...
Voice box out of the box. Here is the assembly and testing of the Voice Box Shield from SparkFun. This is pretty easy - however, it is not what I th...
Lets test out the motors to see what breaks. In preparation: Attach Arduino Vin to 18v battery - allows it to run without being plugged into USB...
So watch this video and see if you can tell what as gone wrong.... Video - First Try - 1 - Motors are running at very fast 2 - Burns out the mos...
Here is a video showing my first run with the fixed code. You will notice that instead of doing an orderly - right arm, left arm, waist, right w...
If the reset problem is caused by dips in power, then running the arduino off of a second power supply (i.e. not the 12V drill battery) should stop it...
I tried running some tests in the driveway -- this went very poorly. I had connected the 6V battery pack to the jack on the arduino - but the jack ...
Rebuilt mechanism to bend at waist - still not great -moved motor a little -added L bracket to try and get more leverage (had to make L bracket) -add...
The test code is getting long and confusing. As it is now, every action needs its own block of code with all the details in it. So, repeating an ac...
It is time to test this thing on the floor. The wheels do not work well. Video: [1319] I tried changing the wheel speed - but it is still...
The wheels are not working well and the drills will probably break from trying to support the weight of the machine. A soluction that works okay - is...
Here is a video - [1333] The wheels are still not great, but at least we have some ability to move the robot around. Problems: the casters ...
We are quickly using up the pins on the first arduino. We will have to use multiple boards and then communicate between them. To get this started I ha...
Using stepper motors and servos we can get better motion control than by using DC motors (hopefully) Servos are pretty easy - you just tell them whe...
Add a second motor to give the left shoulder more movement. Using stepper motor to pull a string Shaft collar with set screw used to mount st...
Using a little stepper for this: http://www.adafruit.com/products/168 It has 6 leads: Green + Read : ground Brown:M1 Black: M1 (other termina...
Re-attach cardboard shell. Cut and tape as needed. Good for kids. Used some deck screws.
To move the head back and forth - mount a medium sized servo motor on the top peice of carboard (see pic). The axle pokes through the cardboard, then...
I guess we have enough moves to start working on something else. serial commands added: 'h' - to move the head - runs through full sweep 's' ...
when both wheels are run at the same time - it does not work well. I tried running each wheel of a seperate battery ---- but I did not do it correct...
Tried using fabric bend sensors to sens arm position - this will take some fine tuning.
Tried a robot claw from spark fun.... did not read instructions.....
This motor shield would be very good for face and hand movements.
Well - I've done something to mess up the wheels. The relays are responding but no action. I swapped out the mosfet for the left wheel - not sure if...
Time to paint the shell - this is fun and easy. Unlike the direction control - which has become difficult and tedious.
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