Control your iRobot Create with a Palm Pilot

Step 4 Make a snazzy cover for the Cargo Bay

This step is largely optional, but it really helps the look of the finished robot.

First you should take a piece of paper (tracing paper might be best) and set it over the iRobot Create's cargo bay. Using a pencil (or pen, or whatever) poke out holes in the paper where there are screw holes in the Create. I found it helpful to use the screws that come with the create to physically screw down the page. Then trace A box around the cargo bay (the 4 screw holes should be within the box). The idea here is to make a stencil we can use to cut out a cargo bay cover. When you are finished you should cut off the excess paper from the stencil, it should basically look like a box with 4 holes around the sides.

What you want your cover to be made of is up to you, personally I just used cardboard but if you have something better handy feel free to use that instead. Take the material of choice and use the stencil you just made to trace out the outline of the cargo bay cover; you'll also want to make a mark for each screw hole. With scissors (or other cutting-thing) cut out the cargo bay cover and punch out the screw holes.

Now that you have the cover, you just need to affix the palm pilot/dock to it. I found velcro worked well, but you can use anything. You may want to avoid permanent adhesion (glue), in case you want to re-use the dock. It's useful to cut out a hole in the cover to allow the chord to enter the cargo bay, and exit where it plugs into the serial port (see picture). A hole punch (like you would use at school to punch holes in paper) can be really useful here.