Melvin, the Black Drum machine - TERMINATED -

Let's Make Robots Robots
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Directly inspired by the Yellow Drum Machine, this is my first venture into robotics. Cobbled together with copious amounts of hot-glue, Melvin shall arise from mechanical parts and give birth to the most kickass drummer in the world.

First stage of circuit board

Or at least, that is the plan. For what Melvin lacks in charisma, he shall make up for in SPEED. Drumming speed at least, he moves as slow as a turtle now.

 

 

 

Still a work in progress. I need to get him to intercept potential targets, and program some drumroutines, but I already have the functions to actuate like moveMotor(FORWARD); and the like

 

 

Update:

 

I got melvin to find an object and intercept it and proceed to bang on it. My job is done. once I get inspired for my next robot, I will dissassemble melvin (thanks to hot glue) and he will live on in future creations.

 

REVIEW of solarbotics gearmotors assemble yread things. For $40, I am unimpressed really. I had expected more speed. The torque was fine. Just off of 5 volts... I don't believe they are rated for 12 (they aren't).

Next time, oh boy... I need reduction gears at least. I don't know about metal but this nylon seems a bit...breaky, more on that later. Wheels man, nice fat wheels. Or a good set of treads, ones of which i have yet to see to my liking.

Breaky nylon? Well those pager motor type deals used on the orig. YDM to swing sticks are ok. At $10 each though... The motor is $1, is that a $9 gearbox I'm getting? Speaking of the gears: One of the teeth broke. I can not manually move the actuator. It works, yes. It will swing back and forth but I was dissapointed.

 

Robotics is more expensive than I had thought it would be but it sure is a nice change of pace after building audio circuits.

Move arounda and bang stuff

  • Actuators / output devices: 2x Solarbotics GM w/tracks
  • Control method: Full autonomous
  • CPU: atmega168
  • Operating system: none
  • Power source: 4x AA NiMH
  • Programming language: AVR C
  • Sensors / input devices: maxbotix ultrasonic
  • Target environment: Everywhere there is stuff to bang
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://community.robotshop.com/robots/show/melvin-the-black-drum-machine-terminated
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Where did you get that

Where did you get that board? I’ve been looking for boards like that, without having to buy the radioshack ones that are way too expensive.

I’m also going to be building a robot using AVR’s. It’s not going to have a purpose, I just plan for it to wander around a room avoiding objects. I can add additional stuff later.

Right now I’m waiting for my AVR programmer to arrive. I tried using a homemade DAPA cable, but that didn’t work at all. My only AVR at the moment is an AT90s2131, but for the robot I plan on using an ATMega32.

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Cheep cheep chicken

Well, I use the “Large prototyping board” from futurlec. http://futurlec.com/Bestsellers.shtml

 

Protoboard 777. Best price, best board. I ordered like 10 of them for General purpose stuff.

I use the AVRISP MKii because it isn’t terribly expensive and WORKS EVERY TIME (with avrstudio too of course!)

I strongly recommend the atmega8/88/168, just because it is the only series I have used. I’ve used the 128, but that is too $$. You get what? 6 analog ins, a few timers, some pwm, and a good 8-14 or so IO pins? All at 20mhz? Count me in!

I never understood the cryptic avr names… It’d be interresting to write code for the new AVR32’s, considering you can just run linux and pretend you’re coding for linux… but I really dislike coding anyway, I’m much more hardware-oriented.

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Sweet, I love seeing
Sweet, I love seeing people’s renditions of this little guy. Fritz has inspired so many!!! Way to break out and go with the avr. I’m doingmine with a rabbit.

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RIP, Melvin.
RIP, Melvin.

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Why? He was such a young robot
in the prime of his silicon life? Oh, the robotity, he will be missed.

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Dude get a video of that
Dude get a video of that stuff first :slight_smile:

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Have you tried tamiya stuff

Have you tried tamiya stuff ?

Because for my robot i’m using the 2 motor gearbox and the tracks from them, and I’m pretty satisfied, they’re easy to build and are well designed. The tracks are made of rubberish material so it’s more forgiving when you algin them and it adds some traction.