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Business card presenting bot — Parallax Forums

Business card presenting bot

tobdectobdec Posts: 267
edited 2012-05-11 19:40 in Robotics
Ok so basicly this is a project to make a front counter robot to present business cards and wow our customers at the computer repair shop I work at. It will be powered by a BS2, Tamiya 4 speed differental tranny, and a l293 for motor control. Nothing speical I know, heres the cool parts...the chassis is made of an old cd-rom drive with nothing but the front plate and drawer left in it plus the drawer mechanismn. Basicly the bot will be docked and charging on our counter until somebody walks in the door. When they do walk in the door will have an undetermined sensor send a signal to start the main. The robot will then follow a line to a designated area on our counter and then trigger an mp3 player hooked to a small speaker that says welcome to (name of our shop) please take a business card. The robot will then open the cd-rom drive and present the business card for a certain amount of time and close the drawer. At which point it will redock into its (base) for recharging and awaiting the next customer. I know it's nothing speical but it gives our shop a wow factor. As you will notice in the build log this is very DIY and hack looking, I want that effect. Let me know what you guys think!

5/8/12 is the first pic I took last night of the BS2 with the l293 and the servo headers for the QTI line following kit, I still need to add the second h-bridge to drive the cd-rom tray and a relay to trigger the mp3player. All of this is going on a pcb when its all tested and working properly.
stamp1.jpg
640 x 480 - 35K

Comments

  • tobdectobdec Posts: 267
    edited 2012-05-09 11:37
    Here are a few updates for today. The main chassis is the bottom part of the drive. As you can see ive mounted my tranny and wheels on the back with electrical tape and cut out wheels wells. The front sliding caster is made out of a pen with the rounded part from the top acting as my caster for sliding. When the epoxy is dru will post pics of the chassis and drive together!
    chassis_main.jpg
    roller.jpg
    tranny_and_wheels.jpg
  • tobdectobdec Posts: 267
    edited 2012-05-09 20:23
    Here is an update with the chassis completely assembled and my stamp on top. There is a ton of room inside for batteries and boards!
    complete_chassis.jpg
    front_chassis.jpg
    back_chassis.jpg
  • tobdectobdec Posts: 267
    edited 2012-05-11 18:17
    Alright guys got a few updates. My biggest obstacle thus far has been the weight of the chassis...so I took the top metal cover from the drive off and ill opt out for a plast one later in the build. Also one motor was running much faster than the other, I solved this buy simply swaping motors straight as an arrow now! I actualy got my 4 QTI sensors mounted and in full working order, by way of a few old MACINTOSH parts and epoxy lol. I also grabbed a 9.6v r/c car battery and charger to go in my card bot so there is plenty of juice to go around for future add-ons and to keep my wallet fat...er at least not flat from batteries. That raised another issue....my voltage reg that powers my dual h-bridge chip gave out due to it only being able to pump out an amp....so I order some 5v 5amp regs for a replacement. I will be working on actually getting all my circuits off the HW board and on a real circuit board in the next few days and getting my circuits and reed switches together for the cd drive. More to come too!
    light_sensors1.jpg
    sensors_fromtop.jpg
  • xanaduxanadu Posts: 3,347
    edited 2012-05-11 18:39
    Nice! When I first started reading I thought you would be building some kind of dispenser not a moving platform. Using the old optical drive will be a hit with customers.
  • tobdectobdec Posts: 267
    edited 2012-05-11 18:47
    That was the owner's thoughts as well. Nobody....nobody is gona forgot the business card a ROBOT gave them! I still gota get a PIR and some reed switches and an mp3 player plus a small op-amp and speaker. Thats just the basic setup..eventually I want to put a cam on it bc we have a 32" lcd in the front so customers can see themselves.
  • xanaduxanadu Posts: 3,347
    edited 2012-05-11 19:22
    The owner should be very happy to have someone custom building a robot into their shop. It's very creative and the perfect place to show your abilities. Many people spend their entire career hardly cross over into microcontrollers and the possibilities within the physical world.
  • tobdectobdec Posts: 267
    edited 2012-05-11 19:40
    Thats about the truth too....I'm in the IT field and work at a small repair shop. Ive worked at 2 radioshacks and 3 repair shops and 2 other electronic retail stores.....I am litteraly the ONLY person from my home town I know that played with embedded electronics. And yea the owner is very proud of my work.
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