I actually love this idea. I know it’s not exactly what the original thread was about, but I’d love to work on a collaborative robot like that, especially with the two stipulations you mentioned in the last paragraph. Of course, then only one person ends up with the ‘finished’ robot. I still think the ‘christmas robot exchange’ idea sounds like a great idea too, then everybody ends up with a robot they get to keep Maybe combining the two… Organize a ‘ring’ of people, and everybody starts one robot and mails it to the next person on the ‘ring’, and when a robot gets back to the person who started it, they get to keep the robot. Or maybe the person that keeps the robot is the person just BEFORE the one who started the robot – the person who would otherwise mail the robot back to the first person. That way the robot you keep is a robot you didn’t work on at all, so it’d be entirely novel and foreign and interesting. Either way, I’d LOVE to be involved in that project
i really think that the I2C would be the best way, so imagin i wanna make a walking robot instead of a driving robot, i only need to change the motor driver module and use a servo controller module, and imagin that after that i wanna add him a extra well to be able to drive, its just to plug another module that have already been made by us, and adjust the software to use it.
Yes, its true that most of the sensores are overprised because of the size, and the engenhiering process. We can together make cheaper sensores, so we can use much more sensores, that can inclusively be better ones, we can use betters ADC, or ways of talk, like in a utrarage we can set up I2C to ask for "what ditance to a object?" and sensore modlue reply the value, or we can ask "is anything in your midle rage?" and he reply a true or false. We can basicly inprove this a lot, and have cheaper modules that we can build ourselfs, and understand whats going in the down level, but add better funcionaltys.
If we work well as a big team, we can do whatever we can imagin.
I go strart thinking seriosly at this… strating with the low level microcontroller programation. My dear turtle bot will need to wait
So, who’s in ? Ok, I guess we all have a lot of expectations for the project and so far there are a lot of good ideas on the air. So 2 questions:<o:p></o:p>
To start, I have two devices on the drawing board.
1) I intend to develop an I2C 2-channel 12V 20A reversible motor controller. The aim is that it be suitable for driving two car windscreen wiper motors ineither direction with a range of speeds (more accurately “torques”) and offer some limited speed feedback using the wiper motor’s own inbuilt “once-per-revolution” switch.
I am undecided as to wether to provide scope for this to be extended for better rotational position or speed feedback, or to develop that as a seperate device. My inclination is to develop it as one single I2C module such that it could be given the instruction: “rotate forward at 40RPM” and the main CPU would not have to bother about it.
2) I am a big fan of using as high a level as possible for the main processor and it is my intention to enable the use of a PDA as the “brains” of future projects. I have already done this with great sucess using a Palm III (which you can get on eBay for $60). It should be a reasonably simple excercise to separate my protocol (which I will freely share) from an existing project and put it on a Microchip PIC (favoured MCU) which natively supports RS-232 AND MSSP. (MSSP because this device would be the I2C bus master.)
I have also used a Psion 3c and a 5 for past projects and their inbuilt programming languale (OPL) is brilliant and dead easy to learn. I settled on the Palm III purely based on its small size. is a great device for this. I have used yBASIC AKA HotPaw (free download: http://www.hotpaw.com/rhn/hotpaw/) with great success to address the serial port. Of course the project should be extensible to allow interfacing with more modern PDAs via USB.
Ideally, I would use a Palm Vx, or something else which could be powered from the main batttery of the robot, but I’m on a budget.
God created the integers; all else is the work of man - Leopold Kronecker
If I might add a third item, I have developed my own 16-channel servo controller, which currently has a serial interface. It should be straightforward to convert this to an I2C device as well. I will happily share it. You won’t like it, though: like all my projects the MCU is coded in RISC assembler.
The other thing, re the above message: If this takes off, and anyone else is interested in adopting the idea of using a PDA to control their projects, it would be great if you could all lobby the guy who wrote THIS version (http://www.aldweb.com/articles.php?lng=en&pg=5350) of BASIC. It is definitely superior to yBASIC and the IDE is excellent, BUT it has no serial port support!!
God created the integers; all else is the work of man - Leopold Kronecker
i’m in, i’m starting with PIC to be able to make I2C modules, so i will share all the info i will learn with this, and i think we can make nice modules, for sensores, and dc or steper motors controllers.
When i have more info i tell you guys, i’m just going to buy some PIC and other stuffs to be able to program them, and strart on the PICs world.
keep this project going, with everyone doing him best, i can’t expect nothing else that a greath final result!!!
Ahhh. Noooo! Don’t BUY PICs!! Register at eh Microchip website and request free engineering samples. (They even pay the postage!) Select your PIC carefully from the BRILLIANT on-line interface. If you want a slave I2C device, get a PIC that natively supports the interface. Anyway, Microchip will send you up to 3 of any of 3 different products in one shipment. With 9 PICs for free, and a free IDE you can’t complain. (Except you’ll have to learn RISC assembler to be able to employ the IDE.)
God created the integers; all else is the work of man - Leopold Kronecker
thank for the warning, ok, thank for the warning, ok, its better to we talk by mail as you told me to i get some better advices, thanks for all the help, i will check microchip website until i be able to contacto you… to learn a litle more of it.
I think it would be fun to I think it would be fun to fabricate parts instead of a whole robot. For example we make a motor driver that can control 10 motors both forward and reverse or a servo controller that can control multiple servos, but cheaper to make than the existing technology. I would think it would be similar to making a board that accepts an integer and it send a signal to that number pin on the secondary board. Just an idea… the project wouldn’t have to be a robot it could just be a cheaper way to do something without paying top dollar for a premade part…
Maybe combining the two… Organize a ‘ring’ of people, and everybody starts one robot and mails it to the next person on the ‘ring’, and when a robot gets back to the person who started it, they get to keep the robot. Or maybe the person that keeps the robot is the person just BEFORE the one who started the robot – the person who would otherwise mail the robot back to the first person. That way the robot you keep is a robot you didn’t work on at all, so it’d be entirely novel and foreign and interesting. Either way, I’d LOVE to be involved in that project