ok I’m getting confused and
ok I’m getting confused and a headache. Just forget it. Alright, just forget the whole thing you said or I’ve said. Okay?
He he
Really? Students turn in HOMEWORK written in text speak jibberish? That’s just hilarious…
One question…
One question from a curious noob: What the hoot is a TRIMMER pot(-meter)? Or rather what is the purpose of it in this context?
Trimmer pots are usually for
Trimmer pots are usually for fine tuning some kind of setting, like the sensitivity or balance of a line followers detectors and lots of other stuff. They can turn much further than normal pots which only do about 300 degrees or less but trimmers can turn 10 20 or more times so they are great for their resolution.
ezekiel is right
The two trimer pots are for balancing the speed of the two wheels. Basically you will never have two motors that are exactly alike especially when one is running backward and one is running forward (because they are on opposite sides of the robot). The motors on this robot are controlled via PWM so it is really easy to adjust the speed (so it drives straight) with a couple turns of each pot. Also, ezekiel has it right about the trimmers vs. a regular pot. The trimmes are just more fine-tunable --20 turns instead of one.
trimpots
Thanks got it!!
On a related note…
I very much like the idea of scrapbots (=robots build from scrap), so I started collecting electronic scrap whenever I can (to my girlfriend’s great embarrasment). So far I found a lot of capacitors, resistors, wires, some tactile switches and connectors. All good stuff 
Even better… I found this stuff:
A DC motor, a wheel, some gears, switches (good for touch sensors) and 2 items I THINK are POTS of some sort??!! One of them is from the scroller of a PC mouse. So I was thinking.. is this a pot that can turn indefinately:
The other one is kinda strange. It can be pulled to either side but the moment you let go it centers itself:
Sorry to spam this thread with my silly question. But as I said: I'm a curiuos noob...
I like
Very simple and homebuilt. Go USA go. I like this site alot but encoder as I know it is very presise and not cheap. I reciently saw an Ebay deal on Parallax encoder adaption. LOL all the way. They just pick up holes in the wheels. I am from the machine tool industry unemployed. A true encoder has many pulses per revolution and an A and B channel. Just thought I would voice my opinion.