Programming the basic stamp 1!!!!! HELP HELP HELP!!!!

sarahofedwards

I have absolutely NO background working with these things. I am a second year mechanical engineer with a project to do and am in desperate need of help. Basically, I have the basic stamp 1 project board wired up to 2 small servo motors. I want to be able to write a program something along the lines of "go forwards _____ meters", "go backwards ______ meters", "motor1 slow down, motor2 speed up", "motor2 slow down, motor1 speed up", "go backwards ______ meters".

If anyone has some tips that'd be great. Thanks!

Mike Green

Parallax has all kinds of tutorials. They're mostly oriented to the Basic Stamp 2, but most examples will work with only syntax changes for the BS1. From their main webpage, click on the Resources tab, then select Downloads, then Stamps in Class Downloads. You'll see "Robotics with the BoeBot". This takes you through lots of information on servos, how to control them, and how to do other things related to a small mobile robot.

For your particular example, the Stamp, by sending control pulses to the servos, sets their direction and approximate speed. There's no direct way for the Stamp to know how far the robot has gone unless it knows the wheel circumference and has some kind of calibration information to determine the speed of the wheel based on the width (in microseconds) of the pulse sent to the servo. This will be different with different servos since these hobby servos are not meant to be precise devices. Alternatively, you could add a wheel encoder like the one sold by Parallax for this very purpose ... Search in their webstore for "encoder" and download the documentation for the product if you're interested.

In the future, use a more meaningful subject in starting your thread. HELP HELP HELP is not very useful and people are attracted to help by the actual subject matter of your question. Just HELP HELP HELP is usually a turnoff.

Post Edited (Mike Green) : 3/22/2008 2:46:12 PM GMT