Hello all! This is my first robot project, and I'm super excited about it. Meet Crabe (a vikingish word for "Crab"). He's not much to look at now, but it's a work in progress. For starters, he uses an Arduino Uno with a SeeedStudio motor shield (ver. 1.2). I rigged up a RC car battery as my power source, wich has worked wonderfully so far. For the base, I went with a morphibian rc car for kids; which is about 8 inches long and uses a dual motor system (this makes it essentially a SHR).
Ive owned the arduino for nearly a year, but ive been very slow to learning it, and just hadnt had any fun. Then I foudn this site, where programming can be used to make fun little guys and i fell in love!
What Ive done so far....
-I've torn up the RC body and rigged in a paddle switch in the rear. It adds a fun look, easy power access and has an LED built in.
-By experimenting with examply codes, I've gotten the movement working (i.e. he understands left, right, forward etc.)
-Did some IR range finding tests... his "eyes" will be the first thing I upgrade for sure lol.
-I own a servo but Im currently in the process of learning to command it through the Arduino.
THE GOAL:
-create an expandable robot platform
-make Crabe a fun lil guy to play with my cat
-future ideas include line following, light chaser, claws and use micro-servos to add "personality" (moving parts etc.)
Heres a better shot fo the modded body:
Late Night Progress....6/11/2014
So after some minor creativity I set to clean up Crabe's chassis a bit, if for nothing else, then to make it look better and have wires be easier to locate. Heres the new deal:
I also attempted to make a "Shell" like a Hermit Crabs.... but it just looked like a Dunce cap and I hated it lol. oh well, off to find a more suitable cover!
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://community.robotshop.com/robots/show/crabe
