Yup, this little guy happened by accident. I found myself with a sharpie and some thick copper sheet from a jobsite. A late night and some pneumatic shears and I was holding the pieces that would later form the head. Once soldered together, it sat on the top of my monitor for days, just staring at me asking for a face. I really don't know what happened from there --All the pieces seemed to "just make sense" when they were being made, and went together just as easy. I guess it was just meant to be...
In terms of function, it is simply an Arduino-based Start Here Robot --with a fancy body and nifty screen. It can drive around and avoid stuff, and not much more than that. This is just a simple one. The LCD is a 1.44" LCD from 4D Systems and would be worth every penny at twice the price. I have not only this 1.44" screen but also the 3.2" touch-screen version. Both have SD cards onboard, a full-on microcontroller with it's own language, I/O pins and all the bells and whistles any other robot brain would have. Each can display photos and graphics as well as video --The bigger version even has WAV player built in. --I can't say enough about these screens, again, worth every penny.
After I had completed the construction and code, I stared at this little guy wondering what would be on his little screen face. I tried to commission some art friends to draw different faces to display (each with a different expression) and I gotta be honest --it looked terrible! Instead, I decided to think of where this robot might live or have lived. If you look at him, he might be the one that had survived The Nuke or survived the Great War. Staying with that mode of thought, I suppose he might display images of all the things he saw as the world was destroyed. Yup, this might just be the "Apocalypse Bot"...
Video to come soon --for some reason, my sonar decided today to not play nice when the motors start running. I know, know, gotta get in there with some caps... I will, and well, video to come soon. For now, nice pictures.
I love the way it looks with the black and white pictures and the look of the body. Now you have me looking at that screen. Is the screen’s programming that different from basic?
The language is a bit basic-ish with gotos etc. and it is a little C-ish with for-loops like (i=0;i<100;i++). I picked it up in about 2 days. It is very clear and simple and the manual is to die for. The 3.2" screen comes with a 350 page manual. Each command is broken down, clearly, with sample code for most of it. There is a ton of example code that comes with the IDE as well as 5 extra “apps” to format your SD card, edit and arrange your photos and videos, a font editor and software to re-program your screen from serial mode to “GFX” mode.
Speaking of serial, you can also run either screen in serial mode where it simply becomes a serial slave. It works just as well doing this but why would you want to waste processing power on your main chip when the screen can do more than it’s fair share of the thinkin’.
I was thinking steampunkbot too - but my implementation pales in comparison to your most awesome design !
Is that brass paint on the servo or did you make a brass cover? Love the little piston extensions off the servo, now you just need a mini-gramophone on the ultra sonic sensor.
Dude, get some RF or bluetooth to the little guy and I can set you up with voice commands !
