It's always a good idea to start with things you like or are interested in. Stamps are great for controlling all sorts of things. You can make a voting machine, an LED light organ, a timer and light board for racing, robots, telemetry for rockets and high altitude balloons. You can make a sprinkler controller, a coffee maker timer. What catches your fancy?
Is this a solo project or are you working with a group?
At the school where I work, we have just started a robotics class (extra curricular) and our first project is an autonomous vacuum. I know there are commercial units like the irobot, but this one is scheduled to clean the floor in the woodworking shop. With about 1000 sq ft, piles of sawdust and all the equipment and other obsticles, this will provide an interesting develoopment challenge for the students.
For High School there are several issues that you have to consider. One of them is the total cost of the project, time limitation, and how to captivate your audience, just to mention a few.
From my experience (a long time ago) the projects that seem to attract the most persons are the ones that do something they can watch and touch, there is interaction between the user and the Stamp.
Something as simple as a dice generator made of·7 LED each dice is usually a winner. They just touch a switch and the dice rolls...lighting random LEDs in each dice, then it comes to a stop with the number of LEds on in each dice representing a real dice number (1-7)
Any simple project that can control something and have some level of USER interaction should be a winnwer. The suggestions they have given you in the previous posts are great. It is up to you to implement something that will attract the USER, otherwise you will loose their interest no matter how sophisticated your design is.
Another idea is to make a simple (and I mean simple) video game using either joysticks or the MESMIC MX2125 to create an animation and control system. There is an example for that in the Smart Sensors text. You can use that as a base and develop something more interesting and fun.
Remember, the interaction with students and your Stamp will make the project more interesting!
Keep it interesting and simple!
GOOD LUCK.
Post Edited (batt_man) : 9/17/2008 12:06:57 AM GMT
Swiftsure (in my icon) was my senior project. I got most of the stuff commercial, deciding early on that I wanted to focus on the software side of things more than the hardware. To that end, I made a little autonomous robot. It got me full credit (for the project part: my habits are not so favorable to other things like portfolio decoration) and I learned a new language while doing it. Now I'm working on a larger, more powerful version that uses much of the same code (and much new code) to truly navigate.
My advice: don't let your teachers say that you can't do it (if you know you can). My teachers were, hmmm, hesitant to support this since I was the first in my school to try. They said to make sure I had a backup, something less glamorous perhaps. The principal, on a round of talks to the senior class, mentioned about a tea pouring robot was doomed to failure. To my pride, he was there when I presented and successfully demonstrated my project. Now my school has a robotics program...
As you have seen first hand, nothing succeeds like success. Congrats.
The best customer I ever had was a guy who was always asking "......would it be possible to do.......?" Then he would tell me what he was thinking about and then walk away in order to give me time to think. It led to some interesting projects including the $500,000 tree harvester shown as my avatar.........one version of which used a Stamp to measure and cut the logs.
As well, almost every project can be (has to be) broken into manageable pieces, and each one can be an intersting project in its own right.
so far we've suggested nearly twenty projects and all we've got back is that you're looking to build (probably) a robots based project that costs less than $1000.
you must have some ideas or general areas of interest.
My project was about $600. Most of it was because I got alot of starter kits, and so had left over parts. Now I'm using many of the same parts for my second project ($900~). I'm sure that when I finish this one and get tired of it, I'll reuse most of the components in a new project. Unlike Stamptrol, my projects are for me to learn from and not intended to be permanent. My suggestion is that you do the same.
As an idea session: what do you want to do with your life after graduation? Fields like geology, mining, forestry, logging, trucking, construction, astronomy, retail, and music could all have more computers integrated.
Edit: Nothing wrong with permanent, but I don't have the money for it at the moment.
All the electronics came from Parallax. I custom built the bumpers and the shell, and did some modification to the board height. I also got the Boe-Boost, but I found that it would constantly fall out a bit, and create unpredicatable behavior. I posted it in the Completed Projects forum here.
The casing is built out of styrene, and the bumpers out of aluminum. In that forum there's a simple set of bumper dirrections, but I went ahead and made a nice, complete version. It's floating around at Gadget Gangster until Nick puts it up, so if you want I can mail you a copy (assuming his copy right stuff allows it.)
That's for Swiftsure. For the new version (Swiftsure II) I reused some parts, bought new electronics from Parallax, and did some new stuff (DC-DC converter from 12v to 7.4v, New heavy duty platform, special shell). I'll post the DC-DC converter in completed projects soon, then eventually get to the whole bot.
Edit: the Swiftsure series is based on my desire to make autonomous robots with navigation capabilities. What area do you want to explore?
Comments
A line-follower might be nice.
It has industrial application, will teach you about photocells, limit switches, expanding i/o plus it will work on a Stamp.
Cheers,
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Tom Sisk
http://www.siskconsult.com
·
At the school where I work, we have just started a robotics class (extra curricular) and our first project is an autonomous vacuum. I know there are commercial units like the irobot, but this one is scheduled to clean the floor in the woodworking shop. With about 1000 sq ft, piles of sawdust and all the equipment and other obsticles, this will provide an interesting develoopment challenge for the students.
If I could type this job would be SO MUCH EASIER!
From my experience (a long time ago) the projects that seem to attract the most persons are the ones that do something they can watch and touch, there is interaction between the user and the Stamp.
Something as simple as a dice generator made of·7 LED each dice is usually a winner. They just touch a switch and the dice rolls...lighting random LEDs in each dice, then it comes to a stop with the number of LEds on in each dice representing a real dice number (1-7)
Any simple project that can control something and have some level of USER interaction should be a winnwer. The suggestions they have given you in the previous posts are great. It is up to you to implement something that will attract the USER, otherwise you will loose their interest no matter how sophisticated your design is.
Another idea is to make a simple (and I mean simple) video game using either joysticks or the MESMIC MX2125 to create an animation and control system. There is an example for that in the Smart Sensors text. You can use that as a base and develop something more interesting and fun.
Remember, the interaction with students and your Stamp will make the project more interesting!
Keep it interesting and simple!
GOOD LUCK.
Post Edited (batt_man) : 9/17/2008 12:06:57 AM GMT
My advice: don't let your teachers say that you can't do it (if you know you can). My teachers were, hmmm, hesitant to support this since I was the first in my school to try. They said to make sure I had a backup, something less glamorous perhaps. The principal, on a round of talks to the senior class, mentioned about a tea pouring robot was doomed to failure. To my pride, he was there when I presented and successfully demonstrated my project. Now my school has a robotics program...
As you have seen first hand, nothing succeeds like success. Congrats.
The best customer I ever had was a guy who was always asking "......would it be possible to do.......?" Then he would tell me what he was thinking about and then walk away in order to give me time to think. It led to some interesting projects including the $500,000 tree harvester shown as my avatar.........one version of which used a Stamp to measure and cut the logs.
As well, almost every project can be (has to be) broken into manageable pieces, and each one can be an intersting project in its own right.
Cheers,
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Tom Sisk
http://www.siskconsult.com
·
this is for high-school
i am in a robotics class (NMTCC)
and i am looking to spend under $1000
so far we've suggested nearly twenty projects and all we've got back is that you're looking to build (probably) a robots based project that costs less than $1000.
you must have some ideas or general areas of interest.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Tom Sisk
http://www.siskconsult.com
·
As an idea session: what do you want to do with your life after graduation? Fields like geology, mining, forestry, logging, trucking, construction, astronomy, retail, and music could all have more computers integrated.
Edit: Nothing wrong with permanent, but I don't have the money for it at the moment.
Post Edited (SRLM) : 9/18/2008 5:35:03 PM GMT
what web site you got your parts from
?
The casing is built out of styrene, and the bumpers out of aluminum. In that forum there's a simple set of bumper dirrections, but I went ahead and made a nice, complete version. It's floating around at Gadget Gangster until Nick puts it up, so if you want I can mail you a copy (assuming his copy right stuff allows it.)
That's for Swiftsure. For the new version (Swiftsure II) I reused some parts, bought new electronics from Parallax, and did some new stuff (DC-DC converter from 12v to 7.4v, New heavy duty platform, special shell). I'll post the DC-DC converter in completed projects soon, then eventually get to the whole bot.
Edit: the Swiftsure series is based on my desire to make autonomous robots with navigation capabilities. What area do you want to explore?
Post Edited (SRLM) : 9/18/2008 5:36:25 PM GMT