I dismantled a cd drive from my old laptop yesterday, and found out that the plastic frame and insides were a pretty good chassis for a robot. It will have an LCD screen, use an IR sensor for not running into walls, and possibly some odds and ends here and there. Does anyone have any suggestions for some of the features that would be integrated into this robot? I am using a Picaxe 28x1.
-Nflodude
Here are some things to consider
Locomotion: What will you use to move it around?
- Two gearmotors with differential drive will take up two digital outputs each from your 28x1.
- Two continuous rotation servos (either hacked by you or purchased already made for continuous) will provide differential drive and use only one digital output each.
- Note that I (and others) have had some trouble with the servo commands on the 28x1. If you try to disable the servo by setting the pin low (or high), it resets the Picaxe on at least some of the revisions. This seems to have been fixed on the 28x2. I thought it was worth mentioning.
Sensors: How will it see?
- Will your IR sensor be on a servo so that it can scan?
- You can also use multiple IR sensors and mount them at angles.
- Consider supplementing the IR sensor(s) with bump switches or other sensors.
- Do you want features like cliff detection so it won’t fall off a table?
- How about line following?
