Ok this is my second arduino robot thats currently in very early development, i thought i'd drop a few picks to show how its going. at the moment this is, electronicly very similar to the last bot.
https://www.robotshop.com/letsmakerobots/node/5134
the main difference being it is now driven using motors and tracks, hence the motor driver circuit.
the chassis i used is the RP5 robot chassis available from therobotshop.com. its realy nice quality and comes preassembled with 2 6v geard motorsand tracks. to drive the motors i used the solarbotics L298 dual motor driver kit. this works briliantly with arduino and has a handy regulated 5v out whith is good to power the servo im using.
I intend to add another layer to mount stuff on to add to the coolness-nes of it :P i recently came accros an instructable for a coil gun that i may try and mount on it if it is not TO dangerous. but in the shourt term im goint to replace the main sensor with a PING ultrasonic sensor and put an IR sensor on either side to improve control.
if anyone can help with ways to write better code for the thing i would apriciate it, at the moment i can only do the "go up to a wall, look left, look right, turn and go sort of thing" i want to be able to make the main sensor scan across and use proportional control rather than 90 degree turns.
will keep the updates coming!
UPDATE :
so im currently working on a better version of the code, and i will soon be ordering these parts:
http://www.coolcomponents.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=132
and
http://www.active-robots.com/products/sensors/devantech/srf05.htm
i also want to mount a sharp IR on either side of thebody to help avoid walls.
UPDATE 2 :Recently i tried to conect a 2 lineLCD display to the robot, for one reason and another it didnt work out, it also left a mess of wires and used pretty much all the I/O pins on my arduino. However "if at first you dont, blah blah blah" ive found this.
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=813
a serial controled display that can be controlled using just one pin! looks pretty easy to use aswell. ive got a growing list of things i want to experiment with, i'll get around to it eventualy!
UPDATE 3:
ok despite my plans for more parts to be added to the bot, a distinct lack of money has got in the way :P one thing i have purchased however is a blinkM.
http://thingm.com/products/blinkm.html
these are "smart led's" that are highly compatable with the arduino. they are easy to program for and give a good level of interactivity to a robot, i've just about finised writing a code to give my bot a "heartbeat" the led pulses red and when it meats a wall the colour of the pulses change depending on the distance.
*sorry there are no videos of this bot yet, im gettin my new laptop in a few weeks with a camera built in so they are coming... promise*
navigate using IR sensors
- Actuators / output devices: servo, 2 6v motors
- Control method: autonomous
- CPU: Arduino
- Operating system: Windows
- Power source: 9v battery, x6 AA battery pack
- Programming language: C Wiring/assembler - Arduino
- Sensors / input devices: Sharp IR
- Target environment: indor and outdoor smoothish ground
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://community.robotshop.com/robots/show/arduino-robot-platform-mk-2
