Thanks everyone! They loved doing this and they really love their S2s.
By the way Jess, one of their first projects was a message delivery route to one of the GatorBots' Mom who teaches down the hall from our computer lab. It is about a 75 foot run with turns and twists. The S2 was programmed to go right to her desk! All with the GUI and trial and error. Everybody loved it.
And the GatorBots feel like celebs being on YouTube! Thanks for the fun erco! :cool:
Hey one more cool thing - once our code was written - we uploaded it on another S2 just to see what would happen. Identical results. To me this is truly amazing on a robot of this price!
Duane: THAT is cool! Bravo! Great concept & execution all the way. Great results, especially sans encoders. Just recording two PULSOUT values? Fitty times per sec. WOW! Bring that to Expo fer sher, Pal!
Hey, you have quite a long drive to Expo from Idaho. Can you use that setup to record yourself driving to Expo, then reverse it so the car drives itself home while you catch some well-deserved shuteye in the back seat?
Duane: THAT is cool! Bravo! Great concept & execution all the way. Great results, especially sans encoders. Just recording two PULSOUT values? Fitty times per sec. WOW! Bring that to Expo fer sher, Pal!
Thanks, erco. It was your recording your robot's travel that got me thinking about doing this. I wanted a way to record curved travel paths and just recording the commands given to the servos seemed like the easiest way of doing this.
The robot records 11 bytes fifty times a second. The recording shown in the video was 27.2KB. This is the data recorded as the robot started to move.
I wanted to be able to read the numbers generated in a text editor or Excel so the numbers are saved as ASCII characters. If I just recorded the raw data without commas or line breaks I think each data set could be four bytes instead of eleven. I was not really worried about file size though since I was using an 8 Gig SD card.
Hey, you have quite a long drive to Expo from Idaho. Can you use that setup to record yourself driving to Expo, then reverse it so the car drives itself home while you catch some well-deserved shuteye in the back seat?
Ah, but I'd have to drive back in the same lane I drove down in. I don't think the other drivers would be very happy with my heading north in a south bound lane.
I'll have to record both directions so next year I sleep both ways.
Duane, that is neat. I vote it best of thread. With that kind of repeatability you could use that as a teaching pendant for a robot arm!
I'm glad you liked it Martin.
The problem with using this method with a robot arm is it records all your mistakes too (as seen in the video). I think erco's method of moving the arm to the desired position and then recording that position would probably be a better way of training a robot arm.
This method would probably be a good choice if the arm had to make some fluid motions like writing with a pen.
We'll have to figure out how to repeat this success.
IMHO, people got on board 'cuz it looks easy.
1) Almost no rules
2) No processor constraints
3) No track to buy/build
4) Everyone has a smooth kitchen floor or equivalent
5) Almost any robot is capable of making a figure 8 pattern, no mods necessary.
As Amanda pointed out, it ain't so easy returning to and stopping on your starting spot exactly. Sounds easy, though.
Given that line of reasoning the need for a course and robot capable of handling it is probably why my challenges of peril and doom didn't catch on. So something like that four bottle challenge would likely be more popular.
I think you guys are having just a bit too much fun.
I have not really spent any time just having fun with microcontrollers, but I like a challenge and this figure eight challenge seems interesting. Are there any rules that apply to hardware?
Bruce
Still waiting for you to weigh in, idbruce! All wire-bending and no fun make idbruce...
I'm not quite sure why everyone is trying to make figures of "8" but one things for sure, I liked the flame thrower erco
I once embarked on a challenge to get my "Octobot" to make an ellipse - for those mathsies guys out there, you'll reckognise it as being one of the hardest shapes to "draw" with a robot as it's path is having to be recalculated every time it moves. In the end I never got this working, mainly because of lack of time, but of late I've gone back to the idea. I've got a friend to write a few formulas to calculate the movement. The robot I was originally working on has been pulled apart for spares, but I'm thinking of putting it together again, using it's stepper motors, and a new brain - the BeagleBone. As I ported the formulas to python I can put them straight on the BeagleBone and have them work straight off the bat! Well, enough for now.
John: I'll take your ellipse challenge! Like it a lot. An ellipse is a stretched/squashed circle. Seems like this might approximately work for a differential drive robot:
1) Run outside wheel at constant speed.
2) Gradually ramp inside wheel from ~50% speed to ~80%, back down to 50% then back up to 80%.
It would take some tweaking, but it could be fun to trace that path and see how repeatable it is. Dinner plates as foci. Not sure if I'll get to it before we leave for vacation, but I'll add it to my "to do" list. Great idea!
Hey, the Figure 8 is catching on! I like to think that we inspired this Figure 8 course at Maker Faire this weekend, although it's for pedal cars instead of robots.
Comments
Thats the best figure 8 display so far..:thumb::thumb:
-Tommy
Whit, bring them on the Parallax bus to the Expo. Life, liberty and mac & cheese for all!
Did I just date myself?
Twice?
Jim
That was great. I felt like clapping too.
By the way Jess, one of their first projects was a message delivery route to one of the GatorBots' Mom who teaches down the hall from our computer lab. It is about a 75 foot run with turns and twists. The S2 was programmed to go right to her desk! All with the GUI and trial and error. Everybody loved it.
And the GatorBots feel like celebs being on YouTube! Thanks for the fun erco! :cool:
By the way erco, I see that you have more that doubled my number of posts now. Wonder how many of those were eBay bargains?
Whit, I don't even search Ebay anymore. I just come to the Parallax Forums to see what Erco post. Everything else on Ebay is just stuff.
Tony
True! erco is like an eBay robotics search engine....
I didn't really try to keep the robot close to the pie tins. I might give this another try later on.
BTW, no encoders on this one. I do plan to add some magnetic encoders to this robot sometime soon.
Hey, you have quite a long drive to Expo from Idaho. Can you use that setup to record yourself driving to Expo, then reverse it so the car drives itself home while you catch some well-deserved shuteye in the back seat?
Thanks, erco. It was your recording your robot's travel that got me thinking about doing this. I wanted a way to record curved travel paths and just recording the commands given to the servos seemed like the easiest way of doing this.
The robot records 11 bytes fifty times a second. The recording shown in the video was 27.2KB. This is the data recorded as the robot started to move.
I wanted to be able to read the numbers generated in a text editor or Excel so the numbers are saved as ASCII characters. If I just recorded the raw data without commas or line breaks I think each data set could be four bytes instead of eleven. I was not really worried about file size though since I was using an 8 Gig SD card.
Ah, but I'd have to drive back in the same lane I drove down in. I don't think the other drivers would be very happy with my heading north in a south bound lane.
I'll have to record both directions so next year I sleep both ways.
I'm glad you liked it Martin.
The problem with using this method with a robot arm is it records all your mistakes too (as seen in the video). I think erco's method of moving the arm to the desired position and then recording that position would probably be a better way of training a robot arm.
This method would probably be a good choice if the arm had to make some fluid motions like writing with a pen.
Video is processing now, taking forever. Hope it comes out OK...
Edit: Youtube is down. I uploaded again at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXqoYIcYYKA and I get the same "still processing video" error.
BTW This has been one of the most successful threads we've had in the Robotics group. We'll have to figure out how to repeat this success.
IMHO, people got on board 'cuz it looks easy.
1) Almost no rules
2) No processor constraints
3) No track to buy/build
4) Everyone has a smooth kitchen floor or equivalent
5) Almost any robot is capable of making a figure 8 pattern, no mods necessary.
As Amanda pointed out, it ain't so easy returning to and stopping on your starting spot exactly. Sounds easy, though.
Enjoy.
Still waiting for you to weigh in, idbruce! All wire-bending and no fun make idbruce...
a lot of money, hopefully!
BTW, nicely & quickly done, Martin_H!
I once embarked on a challenge to get my "Octobot" to make an ellipse - for those mathsies guys out there, you'll reckognise it as being one of the hardest shapes to "draw" with a robot as it's path is having to be recalculated every time it moves. In the end I never got this working, mainly because of lack of time, but of late I've gone back to the idea. I've got a friend to write a few formulas to calculate the movement. The robot I was originally working on has been pulled apart for spares, but I'm thinking of putting it together again, using it's stepper motors, and a new brain - the BeagleBone. As I ported the formulas to python I can put them straight on the BeagleBone and have them work straight off the bat! Well, enough for now.
-John
1) Run outside wheel at constant speed.
2) Gradually ramp inside wheel from ~50% speed to ~80%, back down to 50% then back up to 80%.
It would take some tweaking, but it could be fun to trace that path and see how repeatable it is. Dinner plates as foci. Not sure if I'll get to it before we leave for vacation, but I'll add it to my "to do" list. Great idea!
http://blog.makezine.com/maker/fun-bike-unicorn-club