NEW Propeller Quickstart powered robot - MiniBot appearing in May 2013 SERVO
RobotWorkshop
Posts: 2,307
I just received confirmation that my article on about a new pair of small robots that I made will appear in the upcoming May 2013 issue of SERVO magazine. These robots use some robot parts from Parallax and some of the new in-expensive parts from propellerpowered.com and ebay. I built two versions of the robot. One is based on the Parallax Propeller QuickStart board and the other one used an Arduino board. Both robots are running the RoboVoice text to speech chips. If you already happen to have some of these parts laying around you should be able to follow the article and use them to build up a nice little robot. These have a great finished look and have lots of room inside to expansion.
After the article comes out I can post more pictures and add some details that may not have fit in the article. Attached here are pictures of the finished Propeller version of the robot.
These use a pair of the small 9G servos on the top of the robot. One does sonar panning and the other handles the movement of the swing lid. By moving the swing lid you can aim the sonar up and down as well to take readings wherever you want. These are pretty easy to build and for under $8 for the can used as the body they are pretty affordable too.
Robert
After the article comes out I can post more pictures and add some details that may not have fit in the article. Attached here are pictures of the finished Propeller version of the robot.
These use a pair of the small 9G servos on the top of the robot. One does sonar panning and the other handles the movement of the swing lid. By moving the swing lid you can aim the sonar up and down as well to take readings wherever you want. These are pretty easy to build and for under $8 for the can used as the body they are pretty affordable too.
Robert
800 x 600 - 41K
800 x 718 - 51K
Comments
I like how you used the servo and the lid to provide tilt for the sensor.
Did you use the cheap stepper motors for the drive wheels?
These use the standard Parallax continuous rotation servos and their standard wheels in the base. I'm sure you could easily use the steppers instead if you want. Once the holes are cut in the bottom to allow the wheels to come through you can used double faced tape to hold the motors down and then add a heavy cable tie around the motor through the base to keep them in place. For these the servo seemed the best option since most people are familiar with them from the Bor-Bot and other small robots. On the Propeller version it just uses the servo object to control the main drive motors and the control of the lid and pan servos too.
Robert
Servo really has upped its game recently IMHO.
I just checked the specs on the one at Office Depot and they are a little smaller than the ones I used. I'm sure you could probably try using them but everything will be a little tighter to squeeze everything in. The Office Depot site shows they are only 8.5" tall and 5" around. The ones used in the article came from Target and are about 12" tall (before adding the sonar) and are a couple inches wider. They sell for under $8 and seem like the perfect size for building a robot like this.
Paul
-MattG
I recently learned some Targets may not carry that particular trash can I used in the article. I went back to my local Target and found some marked down in their clearance section. So, if you don't find them with the other trash cans make sure to check the clearance isle too. I've found a couple other similar cans and will try to add part #'s once I confirm they will work too.
Robert