Bot?

General Cedric

I was thinking about a project that would be simple enough for anybody to build, and also be pretty cheap. I bet that if everyone pitched in their ideas, we could design an awesome robot and then create an instructable or something.

My idea was some type of robot based on a Scientific calculator (TI-84 or similar) that would wander around avoiding obstacles. But if you have another idea, post it.

Mike Green

Why use a scientific calculator? These are slow because of the floating point and would need quite a bit of external logic to handle the motors and sensors.

If cost is important, a Propeller would give you much more power and can directly control servo motors and a variety of sensors. It can even do floating point faster than a lot of calculators.

allanlane5

Yup, it's call the "BOE Bot", and Parallax is already making it and supporting it. Try it out, it's excellent!

Humanoido

Simple and low cost... at $14.99, the Stamp 1 Project board gets my vote. It has the full microcontroller, eight ports, power switch, tiny board size, includes a solderless breadboard for circuit wiring and sensors, a regulated supply, pin-connector array, 9-volt battery driven, ac wall power pack jack, power LED, built in serial connector, programs in simple PBASIC, and it draws the least amount of power (8ma running a program, and 6ma sleeping) from a battery compared to most other Basic Stamp boards.

Back when the BS1 first came out, there were scores of people who built robots using it and many of those excellent designs are still posted up on the web, found by searching with Google. Now that it's in this new convenient and low cost development board form, it's easier than ever to construct a robot around it. Also remember a BS1 port can act as a double - both input and output.

www.parallax.com/Store/Microcontrollers/BASICStampDevelopmentBoards/tabid/137/CategoryID/12/List/0/SortField/0/Level/a/ProductID/119/Default.aspx

www.parallax.com/Portals/0/Downloads/docs/prod/boards/BS1ProjBd.pdf

www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=basic+stamp+1+robot&btnG=Google+Search&aq=o&oq=

humanoido

Post Edited (humanoido) : 10/12/2008 1:09:06 PM GMT

General Cedric

Mike Green-Well my idea was to base it on something that many high school students (like myself) would have. But I guess you are right.

-GC

sylvie369

humanoido said...
Simple and low cost... at $14.99, the Stamp 1 Project board gets my vote. It has the full microcontroller, eight ports, power switch, tiny board size, includes a solderless breadboard for circuit wiring and sensors, a regulated supply, pin-connector array, 9-volt battery driven, ac wall power pack jack, power LED, built in serial connector, programs in simple PBASIC, and it draws the least amount of power (8ma running a program, and 6ma sleeping) from a battery compared to most other Basic Stamp boards.

Back when the BS1 first came out, there were scores of people who built robots using it and many of those excellent designs are still posted up on the web, found by searching with Google. Now that it's in this new convenient and low cost development board form, it's easier than ever to construct a robot around it. Also remember a BS1 port can act as a double - both input and output.

Okay, I'm confused. I think that in a recent post Mike Green said that the BS1 serial programming port CANNOT be used as a regular serial port:

http://forums.parallax.com/forums/default.aspx?f=5&m=299966

Yet the product page says

"DB9 connector for BS1-IC programming and serial communication during run-time."

Is this comparing apples and oranges somehow?

Mike Green

The DEBUG statement uses the programming port for its serial communications. It's not general purpose serial communications. The data has a very specific format (described in a Nuts and Volts Column) and is BS1 to PC only. There are no provisions for PC to BS1 communications via the programming port.

Any I/O pin can be used for bidirectional serial communications (with SERIN and SEROUT statements), just not the programming port.

Bruce Bates

sylvie369 -

What hasn't been mentioned so far is that there are 8 other pin ports on the BS-1 which CAN be used for communication with any RS-232 device, including a PC serial port.

Regards,

Bruce Bates

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When all else fails, try inserting a new battery.

Zoot

One caveat -- the regulator on the BS1 project board is rated for only 40ma -- that is *not* much. Projects with a decent number of components that draw current (sensors, LEDs, whatever) may require an outboard regulator such as an LM2940 or 7805 tied to Vdd.

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When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. -- HST

1uffakind.com/robots/povBitMapBuilder.php
1uffakind.com/robots/resistorLadder.php

sylvie369

I'd assumed that Mike was right, since he always is. (yes, I'm serious).

So where the product page for the Basic Stamp 1 Project Board says that the DB-9 can be used for "serial communication during run-time", it's simply wrong, right? (unless that means simply "to send data using DEBUG"). I'm aware that you can use the BS-1s I/O pins for serial communication, but you can't connect one of those pins to the DB-9, right?

The BS-1 is different from some of the various BS-2 boards in that respect, right? For example, in the product page for the Super Carrier Board we see:
"Serial programming port (DB9) can be used for run-time communication (BS2 series)". However, in the SERIN section of the Stamp Manual we read

"All BS2 models have a line receiver on its SIN pin (Rpin = 16). See the "Introduction to the BASIC Stamp" chapter. The SIN pin goes to a PC’s
serial data-out pin on the DB9 connector built into BASIC Stamp development boards. The connector is wired to allow both programming
and run-time serial communication (unless you are using the BASIC Stamp 2 Carrier Board (#27120) which is designed for programming only)."

Just trying to make sure I understand all of this correctly. It's yet another useful thread for those of us who haven't been through all of these details already.

MSDTech

I think that one of the confusing factors is the evolution of the carrier boards for the BS1. The older boards used the PC's PARALLEL port for programming the BS1. The latest versions use the SERIAL port, changing the things that can be done with the connection. The following Nuts and Volts column has a short discussion of the changes as the product evolved.
http://www.parallax.com/Portals/0/Downloads/docs/cols/nv/vol4/col/nv104.pdf

Post Edited (MSDTech) : 10/13/2008 8:45:19 PM GMT

General Cedric

So using the basic stamp 1 as the "Brain," what other parts could be scavenged together to make a simple robot?

Mike Green

Two continuous motion servos, like on the BoeBot. That's 2 I/O pins. An IR emitter driven by a 555 timer with a digital pot controlling the frequency. That would require 2 I/O pins. The associated IR detector would take an I/O pin. An on/off control for the IR emitter would take another I/O pin. That's 6 out of 8. The other two could be used for wireless communications or you could use an IR remote control with the same IR detector used for object avoidance.

That's a pretty sophisticated robot that could be done with a BS1 with some care in programming (because of the limited program size).

Mike Green

A simpler and cheaper robot would use a pair of geared DC motors, each with a simple discrete H-bridge. You could use IR for object avoidance with the 555 timer or just bumper switches like those used with the BoeBot. An IR detector for remote control and that would be it.

Whit

Hey General Cedric,

You might want to check out this site for some simple designs. http://www.sahsrobotics.org/ This is a High School based club too! It is a site for the Santa Ana High School Robotics Engineering Club. They have a page about how they build their bots and some great competition ideas too. At the very least, I think you can get some good ideas there.

Good luck and have fun!

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Whit+


"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths." - Walt Disney

Post Edited (Whit) : 10/19/2008 12:23:45 PM GMT

Humanoido

It only takes one port to connect a CaS photocell that can act as an eye in detecting light levels. Some ports can also be programmed both input or output, essentially doubling up on possible functions. I think the issue with the communications was that the BS2 has DEBUGIN while the BS1 apparently does not. The work around is to input on pins using input, serin, keypad, or other code.

If you google BS1 robot, you'll find many examples. For example robot Cyclops run by a BS1 held the championship SUMO title at FRR. home.silverstar.com/~graben/Bots.htm. You may want to talk to David Buckley and visit his web site. He's created numerous robots using the Basic Stamp 1, such as SimplHEX, Clarissa May, Snowdrop, Gargantua, Ranger Scout, The Imperial Drone Red - Nevik, The Imperial Drone Green - Gotan, the famous BigFoot. Amazing, right?!! His web site is at: davidbuckley.net/DB/RobotList.htm, a BS1 robot car here, enel.ucalgary.ca/People/Turner/robotics/introtorobotics/SLIDES/s1-6.html etc...

Take a look at the P.A.R.T.S. newsletter from the Portland Area Robotics Society. Though the projects are based on other microcontrollers, you can get a lot of good robotic ideas for circuits, sensors, projects, and robot building.
www.portlandrobotics.org/ancient.php?link_id=15

If you take apart some toys, you can scavenge motors, wheels, reduction units, wire, switches, leds, speakers, assorted plastic parts and gears, some circuit boards, hardware, nuts, bolts, screws, washers, and other cool stuff.

Post Edited (humanoido) : 10/20/2008 8:49:51 AM GMT

RobotWorkshop

General Cedric said...
I was thinking about a project that would be simple enough for anybody to build, and also be pretty cheap. I bet that if everyone pitched in their ideas, we could design an awesome robot and then create an instructable or something.

My idea was some type of robot based on a Scientific calculator (TI-84 or similar) that would wander around avoiding obstacles. But if you have another idea, post it.

It's been done years ago. You can see them if you checkout the site below:

www.smallrobot.com/scimath.html

BOB55

I think a simple project that could be built fairly cheaply is simple two servos a PING)) sensor and two swiches. with a creative mind this project could used as a navigational robot or even a simple sumo bot. Then again this idea is coming from a high school student (which I am).

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BOB55

kevinb2050

Hi Mike - you wrote this "IR emitter driven by a 555 timer with a digital pot"
why the 555 - I use BS2's with the emitter connected direct to the pin
does the BS1 have no control over freqency