Simple and Cheap Robotic Projects? 43
siavash_of_stockholm asks: "I have a lot of spare time this so summer, so I've decided to be productive and make my own simple robot. It will come with some basic functions and it should move around without colliding or somehow avoid getting stuck in small areas and so on. I'd prefer to do this without using the popular Lego Mindstorm-kits and instead try to use a laptop and a controller card for the motors and a cheap webcam for vision. Has anyone in the Slashdot community made a similar project (on a tight student budget) and have some documentation of it they can share?"
Laptop? (Score:2)
Memory wire (Score:5, Informative)
Have fun, make me one too.
Re:Laptop? (Score:2, Informative)
GameBoy! (Score:2)
Charmed Labs [charmedlabs.com] makes a great interface card and software to interact with the gameboy. This card can (but isn't required to) interface with many of the lego sensors and motors.
Maybe you can make a duplicate of this (Score:1)
http://www.dalekempire.com/GiantRobo1.html
PC Motor Control Circuits (Score:3, Informative)
Re:PC Motor Control Circuits (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:PC Motor Control Circuits (Score:1)
Good plan, but I got bogged
Re:PC Motor Control Circuits (Score:2)
Re:PC Motor Control Circuits (Score:3, Informative)
Those sites listed in the parent are neat and some good starting points. But I have some more...
---BRAINS---
I might recommend something like an old HP 100LX, 200LX or similar, or maybe an old Pocket PC or Palm. A robot large enough to hold a real laptop will likely damage furniture and walls when it hits (and it IS a "when" and not "if). You are much better off using something about the same size/wieght as a PDA. This also means
Re:PC Motor Control Circuits (Score:3, Informative)
If you insist on using a parallel port for control, use optical isolation on your board (the chips are cheap and easy to obtain), and, don't try to draw drive power from the port.
Words of advice from a proffesional...
Buffer driver IC's... (Score:2)
Re:Buffer driver IC's... (Score:2)
Blocking diodes... (Score:2)
Actually, you will be worrying more about RF interference from the motors than back EMF (which is why you should put at least some caps across the motor terminals - if DC - if using steppers, they should be placed between the power supply rails).
BEAM Robotics (Score:3)
Other than that, build it yourself. Take two servos (you can get 'em pretty cheap at hobby stores) or just two little motors (make an H-Bridge out of some transistors), add a microcontroller (PIC, AVR, or Basic Stamps are self contained), some simple switches or photocells and some random stuff (maybe some wood to make a simple frame or something) and you'll have a cheap robot that you can program and mess around with.
Re:BEAM Robotics (Score:2)
I got that book from the library, and built the light following bot that uses an LM386 op-amp as its 'brain'. It works well and I am happy to have done the project.
Stiquito (Score:4, Informative)
I've written a bunch of book reviews [moskalyuk.com], including those on Slashdot, and some publishers are sending me now catalogs with upcoming titles as part of their reviewing program.
So, anyway, Wiley has this book with the robot kit [wiley.com], that they plan the next edition of some time this September, although the publisher told me before that the deadline might move into the future. I have not read the previous edition, nor have I played with it.
It seems to have received brilliant reviews on Amazon [amazon.com] for that 1999 edition, so I'd suggest just perusing it and maybe buying the book+kit used if it's in buildable condition (i.e. not the robot that is already all built, polished, given guns and ammo, and right now just needs the ON switch to be turned).
Re:Stiquito (Score:1)
One word: Scott Edwards is a great starting point (Score:4, Informative)
I wanted to give him due propers for his project back in 1996, but I never really had an opportunity (I was too busy studying women and beer at FSU at the time).
Use a microcontroller (Score:4, Informative)
Look into microcontrollers (the most common are the Microchip PIC [microchip.com] and Atmel AVR [atmel.com]
A microcontroller will give you heaps more I/O pins, and PWM for driving motors, serial ports, analog/digital converters etc Both PICs and AVRs are available with all sorts of combinations of features.
There are plenty of resources available for both, look in newsgroups and search with google. GCC for the AVR is available for linux and windows so you can easily write C/C++ code for them. Also look into AVRfreaks [avrfreaks.net]
Look at the newsgroup comp.robotics.misc for other people doing similar things.
Good luck!
-Daniel
Re:Use a microcontroller (Score:1)
A good option is an industrial single-board computer. The PC104 standard is less than four inches square. Even the EBX format is usable, at abotu 5"x8". I picked up a single-board computer for less than $50 on eBay; it was brand new. And since they are designed for controlling things, they often have
Re:Use a microcontroller (Score:3, Interesting)
I just wrote a basic network stack for the microcontrollers for the lasers our company produces. All the sensors measure the temperature, with feedback loops to the heaters. Several controllers control 5 or so temperatures and heaters each. The controllers are on a serial bus, with another controller for a usb connection.
It's fun writing code knowing you only have a few bytes of memory. heh.
What about using a PDA? (Score:3, Interesting)
Look into PC/104 stacks (Score:1)
My requirements are way different than yours, however. I'm going to require a rather large control program onboard the sub to reach the level of atonomy I'll need for deep dives.
Good luck to you.
Re:Look into PC/104 stacks (Score:2)
Possibly the whole inside can be a chassis that slides out one end - but that makes it hard to connect sensor and actuators.
Re:Look into PC/104 stacks (Score:2)
Interested in CNC? (Score:3, Interesting)
Productive? (Score:3, Funny)
Only on Slashdot would this be called "productive"...
Toy Robots Initiative (Score:2)
Check out the Toy Robots Initiative [cmu.edu] at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute. In particular, the CMUcam [cmu.edu] and Palm Pilot Robot Kit [cmu.edu] are worth checking out.
microcontrollers... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:microcontrollers... (Score:1)
Palm pilot robot (Score:1)
Has instructions and software ready made or you could base something different off of it. Pretty cheap also.
Tutorials (Score:1)
Control via laptop? (Score:3, Informative)
I used their digital I/O and stepper motor controllers for my 3D scanner [codevis.com] project - they're pretty good for low-res, low-budget projects.