I was recently rummaging about in my parts bin and i cam across this thingy:
This used to be part of a toy i had as a kid, which was a spinning top that would start to play music and flash lights when it was spun.
What i’m interested in mainly is the metal thingy at the bottom of the picture. It’s just a thin piece of metal (copper?) with a weight mounted at its tip. when the base is subjected to a horizontal movement, the metal strip vibrates and creates contact with the metal flanges it rests between. This in turn triggers a circuit.
I was thinking of ways of how i could include this as an enhancement to the ‘start here’ robot. Maybe have it sense when it hits an object, or make switch off everything until it is gently ‘dropped’ on the floor?
Perhaps make it go to sleep (look into the power save modes of the Picaxe) when it finds a corner… and wake up if gently pushed (or given a kick) - moving around till it finds a new corner to rest in / turning it self in "hybernate" again?
See my robot, it is sitting over there… Go ahead, give it a push, and see what it does
I really like this idea…it makes the robot a bit more ‘alive’…I’ll look into this.
I’m very new with the programming bit…although i had quite a lot of experience with QBAsic (and other languages) a couple of years ago, I’m still getting the hang of the full potential of PICAXEbasic…this will be a nice way to learn a bit more. Thanks Fritsl…original ideas as always
I’m also thinking about adding ‘sound sensors’ to the robot…my idea was to simply hook up old earphones to the analogue input pins…do you think that would work?
That way if i manage to have three or four ‘sensors’ i can get the robot to look at the direction of a sound when it detects one.
