Robotic Hand Clock, Am i out of my league....

ROBONOOB

Hello, this project im thinking about doing will be my first venture into the world of robotics and i am very excited to get started. The idea is to construct a robotic hand, controlled by servos, that will display the hour of the day. (index would be 1:00, index and middle finger would be 2:00 ect). In addition, i want to include a screen that would give the minutes and, if possible, date but that is not a must. My problem is that i lack all knowledge to get started. First of all, what will control all of this??? I saw the BASIC Stamp microcontroller and thought it might be able to control it but is that all you need? How do you program it? I can learn the language I just get lost when deciding on the "BRAIN."


Thank You for your time,


Matt

PJAllen

"A journey of 1,000 miles begins with one step."

The standard answer to your question, round these parts, and it's a good one, is that you download "What's a Microcontroller".
http://www.parallax.com/Portals/0/Downloads/docs/prod/edu/28123-WAM-v3.0.pdf
You have to start somewhere.
Which microcontroller to chose depends on what it's required to do.

ROBONOOB

thank you i will start there! nice quote by the way

erco

The Stamp does not have a built-in clock, so you'll need to add one.

How many hands & fingers are you planning on having to display 12:59?

erco

Also check out this video on robot arm clocks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpxD01oRMlI&feature=related

PJAllen

If you use binary, two is always a hoot.

erco

PJ Allen wrote: »

If you use binary, two is always a hoot.

Nasty boy, Santa's watching!

ROBONOOB

erco wrote: »

The Stamp does not have a built-in clock, so you'll need to add one.

How many hands & fingers are you planning on having to display 12:59?

Like I said previously I am completly lost, and now a little discouraged by the idea that i have to add a built in clock... The idea was to use only one hand (five fingers) to count from one to twelve. I have allready planned how to count (in my secret fashion) to 12 with one hand. However, i could not find a way to count from one to 60 for the minutes so i decided to use a display of somesort, if possible, to show the minutes. How hard is it to add a clock?

ROBONOOB

PJ Allen wrote: »

If you use binary, two is always a hoot.

yea i didnt realize that till i was trying to figure out the counting method and someone asked what i was doing when i hit two lol

ROBONOOB

erco wrote: »

Also check out this video on robot arm clocks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpxD01oRMlI&feature=related

That looks extremly complicated but cool lol

ROBONOOB

Could i instead use the BASIC Stamp 2px Microcontroller Module? and do you really need to get a carrier board or educational board? i dont understand the uses..
In addition i was looking at the other microcontrollers are realized that there is a description that says "PBASIC COMMANDS: 63." What does that mean only 63 lines of code?

erco

63 different commands, ~400-500 lines of code in a BS2

ROBONOOB

erco wrote: »

63 different commands, ~400-500 lines of code in a BS2

Is that enough? And what do you think about the BASIC Stamp 2px Microcontroller? Plus do i need to purchase the board? sorry bout all the questions, once i know what to get i will figure out the programing (hopefully) on my own, just need to know what to get first before i finalize my purchases

PJAllen

You're going to need what you're going to need.
You're not going to get this right having never done anything remotely similar.
There's a lot for you to learn.
You ought to start small.
Get a servo or two or three -- and see what it takes to get one "finger" going, given your interpretation of "finger" or "hand" or what have you.

kutalinelucas

Just to start you off give this PDF a read...

(https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:8NCWaRb2bTkJ:www.parallax.com/Portals/0/Downloads/docs/books/sw/Web-SW-v2.1.pdf+EXPERIMENTS+AND+BASIC+STAMP+SOURCE+CODE&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESh7EWUGKJmpqkcD7odnDf18g8XCTvQ4TdmkuM2Yg7PNFDEaZG6_6Sk09mTb6LD9gDHDXZfnngxpLzMA2ASTSDK8pcHSKBHrk0slbNgH0Xg9dYBR9RjgBGDrhW-Kb2TJXoQ1I7Y_&sig=AHIEtbQl8TSK4mJkTxXAddo0JcYPoy6paA)

it has tutorials and source code to run both stepper and servo-motors with a basic-stamp II module.