Penguin Or Boebot

Will P

This will be my first time getting involved in robotics a have some electronics knowledge and understand what componenets do but was wondering which robot would be the best to purchase as a begginer?
- a boebot with the ping))) sensor
or
- The penguin Robot

Will P

Actually or Even a toddler as they are coming to there end of life and are now much cheaper?

Mike Green

You can put a PING))) on a Penguin. It plugs in above the IR LEDs and the IR detector.

The BoeBot has the advantage that it's wheeled and therefore faster, has bigger batteries that are rechargable, and allows you to do hardware experimentation with many detailed tutorials for the BoE.

The Penguin is cuter by far and you can do pretty much anything in terms of software experimentation that you can do with the BoeBot.

Will P

could i use a rechargeable battery pack for the penguin if i found one the right size? or would it be to low/high voltage ? could i use a resistor to take the voltage down a bit?

erco

Don't overlook the Scribbler robot, either. It's cheap, fast, fully assembled and just as programmable as Boe-Bot with lots of built-in sensors. They're due back in stock any day now, supposedly. I'm doing some neat stuff with a Scribbler right now for ROBOT magazine, and there's more to come. Have a peek at my videos at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujjgV6sTvo4 ·.

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·"If you build it, they will come."

Mike Green

You could substitute some other batteries if you can figure out how to mount them and maintain the Penguin's center of gravity.· I'm sure it can tolerate some shifting since the feet are quite large in proportion to the body.· You could even make a little cart that the Penguin could pull around with a battery pack in it if you're creative enough.· The Penguin has a voltage regulator just like other Stamp BOTs, so you could use any voltage source of at least 6V and no more than 7.2V, preferably 6V (like 5 rechargable cells).


Post Edited (Mike Green) : 3/27/2008 11:10:13 PM GMT

Will P

thanks erco i was on youtube having a look at some of the videos including yours very interesting

mike green - thanks a little cart good idea [noparse]:D[/noparse]

Will P

the robot i want i would like to be fun, educational, a challenge but not impossible, something that i can upgrade a fair bit which robot would be best

erco

They're all viable learning platforms, and there's no doubt that the Scribbler was not designed for expandability/upgradeabilty. But I think it's great for several reasons. It's cheapest and the only one that's fully assembled, so it's ready to program out of the box. Parallax age-grades it 8 and up, there's a special GUI programming language included. I suspect a lot of people have bought it and never reprogrammed it in PBasic. Too bad, since the hardware motor drivers make it easier to program than Boe-Bot. Boe-Bot's servo motors require a pulse every 20 milliseconds to move. Your software must be woven carefully around continuous pulsout and pause commands. With Scribbler's motor drivers, you just set it AND FORGET IT! For that reason alone, I think Scribbler is a better platform to learn programming on, you can easily monitor sensors while you're moving. Factory assembly also rules out frustrations due to breadboard electronic connections that have been miswired or bumped/vibrated loose.

The articles I'm writing will get into hacking into the Scribbler's I/O lines for expansion. There is already a "hacker port" inside the case for access to the 3 I/O lines that drive three green LEDs, and the three photocells each have an I/O ripe for the taking. There's tons of Boe-Bot info that translates directly over to the Scribbler as well, they're similar in many ways.

I've probably offended some diehard Boe-Bot fans, but what a great topic for discussion. Can't wait for the spirited rebuttals!

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·"If you build it, they will come."

Will P

sounds quite good its just that i cant buy the scribbler robot in the uk (as far as i know) and postage is around $50 from the USA or possibly less, so... i would want to make this purchase worthwhile lasting me a while before having to ship something else form the usa i will try to look on the net for a scribbler robot..

could i use a propeller chip in the BoE ? as it looks like it would be quite a good way to start to learn programing parallel processing or is it to ambitious

deadwhale

There was a good article in the Spring 2008 issue of Robot magazine about using a Propeller in the boe bot. Judging from the pictures, it's more a Propeller
on a boe bot frame, it looks like just about everything has been replaced with one larger breadboard (the Propeller Education Kit) but I guess it does show that it can be done. Provided you
know a lot more about them than I do.

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Prune Free.

Mike Green

The Propeller Protoboard works very well as a replacement for the BOE. It fits directly on the spacers used to mount the BOE. See this thread: http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=635533.

PJAllen

...and the SPIN Stamp can be used in place of a BASIC Stamp if Propeller power is desired.

http://www.parallax.com/Store/Microcontrollers/BASICStampModules/tabid/134/List/1/ProductID/448/Default.aspx?txtSearch=spin+stamp&SortField=ProductName%2cProductName

Will P

thanks everyone i will check out the spin stamp now (ok just checked it out looks great apart from you cant use pbasic to program it and the BoE has the PBasic compiler and the spin needs a Prop Clip and i dont want to go messing about with the BoE that much..). its the parrallel processing im after as a column in servo magazine or Elektor (cant remember) one of the guys were saying they wish the propeller chip was out before the started electronics as programming was much easier - a good benefit.

so can use the propeller chip in the BoE or do i have to buy the development board because i like the solder-less breadboard quite a bit (as im sure it would be good for beginners) i could always progress to a Propeller Boebot Development board.

will

Will P

Found a link to a elektor article about the propeller development board for the boe bot :
http://www.elektor.com/magazines/2007/july-august/propeller-prototyping-board-for-boebot.197579.lynkx
i have the issue (ebook) if anyone wants a link for it.....

Will P

wow that article mike its really good its want i essentially want to do with the propeller could i just use a basic stamp for it or does it have to be the propeller ?

Mike Green

Do check out BoeBotBasic (downloadable from the Propeller Object Exchange). It does run on the SpinStamp if you recompile it with the proper crystal speed constants (_XINFREQ = 10_000_000 and _CLKMODE = XTAL1 + PLL8X).

Will P

not entirely sure what that meant ^ but thanks so does that mean i can run the spinstamp on The BoE?

Will P

This includes the elektor articles on Basic Stamp Programming Course (1999-2000) and a small article on the propeller development board for The BoEbot - http://mihd.net/n9ryxov