Re. Pololu Maestro Board

Help & Support Robot Parts
1

Hi, I am a novice in this area and am looking to start my very first project but have a few questions if anyone would be kind enough to offer some advice please. Apologies if I have posted this in the wrong section, I was unsure which section was most appropriate.

I have just purchased a Pololu Maestro 6 Channel control board along with two standard size servos in order to perform the following tasks:

Turn a skeleton head left and right
Move a skeleton jaw up and down

I want to create several routines and add voice to the movements. I would also like to have my head run independently of any computer if possible so would like the Maestro board to be able to power and control everything, I know I will require a power source and presumably some way of storing the voice files on the board, maybe an SD card add on if they even exist?

I am also unsure what software would be best suited to creating these routines, I know of VSA and Pololu have their own control centre software but I have never used either and so require assistance please.

Any help and advice anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,

Wayne.

2

The Maestro board can only control the servos while connected to a computer, it has not micro processor to be able to operate in isolation. If you want to create a stand alone device that can move servos and play sound then you’re going to need some sort of micro controller or mini-computer.

The teensy 3.1 micro controller (arduino compatible) has the speed to be able to play sound reasonably well, as if you’re just controlling servos you could do that straight off this board.

A raspberry pi with a servo hat would easily be able to achieve this and could be programmed easily in python, or any other language for that matter. But would be a more expensive option. This would be able to ply higher quality sound and longer sound files than the teensy though.

Hope this helps.

3

Many thanks that helpful