Tab Electronics sumo-bot

James D. Lane

Hi all,
I have 8 Tab electronics sumo-bots for teaching my students robotics.· I can't seem to get the robot to respond to programs that I am writing.· Simple programs.· For example, I want the sumo-bot to drive forward continuously, until its right or left IR sensor detects an obstacle, then I want it to steer right or left to avoid the obstacle and continue driving forward, I developed the code that I believe should do that and the robot drives forward for x seconds then reverses and turns a little bit and then drives forward a little bit.· I did not have any code in the program telling it to drive backwards.· It does not even seem to be running the program that I developed.· I have tried this on two robots and get the same results.· It seems to me there are two processors on this robot, the BS2 and another that actually handles the motors and IR sensors.· Then the BS2 and this other processor handshake with each other based upon the commands that I use in the program.· Is this correct?· So, consequently, it seems this other processor is overriding my programming.· What do I need to do to get it to do what I want? I've put several hours into figuring this machine out so I can start teaching my students how to program it and am growing frustrated.

thanks,
James D. Lane

Bruce Bates

James -

Your best bet is to join the Tab Robot Kit Group on Yahoo, here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tabrobotkit/

You are correct that there are two processors, only one of which is a Basic Stamp.

Regards,

Bruce Bates

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James D. Lane

Hi Bruce,
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I could not find any evidence of a posting forum at Tab's website for some reason.
thanks,
James D. Lane

Forrest

There's a program called Template.bs2 that has definitions for the the Tab Sumobot functions so the BS2 can interact with the PIC controller that drives the motors and responds to the remote control. You can download Template.bs2 here - at the bottom of the page groups.yahoo.com/group/tabrobotkit/files/

allanlane5

Yup, the TAB SumoBot does have a PIC16C505 co-processor, which is programmed with 5 built-in behaviors. It also does PWM for the motors, and reads the IR remote control.

And yes, you do need to program the BS2 to send messages to it to tell it what to do -- the first command being to quit doing the built-in behaviors. The Template.BS2 file has the BS2 interface code in it, so if you use that file as a starting place for your own code you're halfway there.

James D. Lane

Hi Allan,
Does the template BS2 program already have the code in it to command the PIC16C505 to stop doing what it is preprogrammed to do?
thanks,
James D. Lane

allanlane5

Nope, the Template.BS2 program has a list of the commands you can send to the co-proc, and a few subroutines that actually send the values (using SHIFTIN/SHIFTOUT, I believe).

For example, the attached file should turn off the 'native' behaviors, then sit there blinking the LED once a second.

Note PBasic allows you to define pins and 'CON' values anywhere in the file.· The Template file takes advantage of this by defining them very late (far down) in the file.· But they still work.