If you look at XC1 it has around 64 I/O pins exposed which is much more comparable to the other kits you were talking about.
I think the XC5 is a special case, I do not know the reasons for this as I did not design it.
Also, as I have said, the board we are potentially releasing for this robotics challenge is not any of the boards on our site currently, as it is still in the final stages of its design.
I presume this new board which is the one I intend to give out unless someone’s project highly fits one of our other boards, will have a lot of its I/O exposed, and will be at a lower price point (should you decide you want to buy some more after this free challenge.
Even better, as mentioned to someone else, you will hopefully be able to “Link” these boards together so you can benefit of MANY XMOS processors that will all work together! Pretty exciting stuff.
Check out this link as I have put up some interesting videos (more to come later) that may be useful to you:
- The XMP-64 and XMOS Development boards - shows towards the end how we have connected 16 of our quadcore processors together to make a pretty powerful kit!
Feel free to ask questions and such. I am glad you realise the value of the chips we offer.
If you have any really in depth questions etc feel free to ask them on Xlinkers.org as there are many people far more experienced than me on there in such matters who can answer your concerns, as I am from a more Computer Science background as opposed to Electronic Engineering or CSE.
A twist on this, could be to get the robots to sun themselves up, and bring the charge back to the mother robot to charge it.
Also, if she has excess charge, she could charge visiting robots too who dock with the mother (Oh I have just realised you suggested this at the end of your post!)
Still, pretty interesting idea that is certainly do-able.
OoH thats a nice idea too! If I design the children with solar panels, it wouldn`t be hard to program it in after. Also your idea poked my brain and I came up with another variation, the children could go sun themselves but instead of having their own panels they could use a mirror to reflect the sun back to the mother.
Thanks, the XC1 does look a Thanks, the XC1 does look a lot better. Need all the pins we can get! Are there any ADC chips you recommend, or just try something out with the XMOS chips?
Or we can go even further… Continuing on mirrors, why not add some lasers too for good measure and some techie bonus points? haha
Maybe the mother can transmit data via laser links to the bots which have mirrors and can relay the messages on to any bots in their line of site? Might be tricky to get mirrors to align though and be more hassle than its worth (same for sunlight). Though for the sake of your eyes do not use high power lasers or else you will blind yourself whilst "debugging".
Anyhow, if you got that to work, you could then hire a smoke machine to see the lasers, and it would look awesome! haha! Showing them all linked up.
Still, I think both of these ideas should be "after thoughts", IE get the first idea you had working first, the swarm behaviour, exchanging charge/docking, sun seeking etc, and use this mirror stuff as an add on later if you have time.
EDIT: I just saw that ezekiel had the same idea. Or close to, at least. Well great minds think alike, right?
So I was thinking- if this XMOS can handle a lot of different data at the same time- why not make my own robot general? Either the XMOS is stand-alone, just sitting on the table telling my “dumb” bots what to do with an Xbee, or it gets motors and roams the house/yard/forest/water (like, anything) with its buddies. Of course, the “buddies” would just be motor drivers, xbees, sensors, and low-end processors transmitting and recieving data from the leader. The leader, the XMOSBot, interprets the data and sends the appropriate response.
OR-
Instead of just one XMOSBot, all the bots could be intelligent (i was thinking like 2 others.) So instead of being told what to do / tell others what to do, they communicate and share “terrain maps” that they created. Then one of them would piece together the data to form one big virtual map! And so if one bot falls off a cliff, in the air it would tell the mapmaking bot to make a danger zone (before it hits the ground and needs serious repair). And then if the fallen bot’s processor is still running, and it cant move (e.g. on its back) it transmits a constant stream of warning data to tell no one to go near it unless they have found a better path. And then they might try to flip it back over or call me over to help out :D. Or (more realistically) one bot finds a wall and tells the mapmaker that there is a wall.
I think this project will need a minum of one XMOS. It would just be cooler with 3, but judging by the number of entries, you probably cant afford that many.
ps: I hope the bots will have enough sensors to not fall down a cliff, eh?
Maybe you can set your swarm bots against eachother?!
Good to see a bit of overlap, even better for competition.
Maybe you could both seek out sunny spots and whoever has the most advanced sharing/seeking/strategy gets the most power! Your bots could alert your other bots of where you last saw an enemy bot, and if it was in a sunny location, you might get 2 of your bots to come along and push it out of the way!
Just thinking out aloud here.
Either way both ideas are pretty cool.
I like the idea of having a master bot that does the processing and controls the zombie bots so to speak.
2) 4 stupid, mobile robots, carrying a single Ultrasonic Sensor each, powered by servos, controlled by a central, hyperintelligent brain. The paralell processing is key as i need to control multiple dumbots at once.
3) I will need 5 kits, or 1 if we are allowed to use outside components (basic stamp 2 for the dumbots, Devboard for brain)
4) Absolutely. i’ll post soon, and post often. I’ll post both. Pick Meeee! ooh ooh pick me please!
aw man, u guys jacked my idea! i shouldnt have told you! I’ll put paintball in mine and splat your bots!
new idea: robot arm that does what your arm does. one kit, diary works. pix and flix. if i get the arm to work, i’ll make a ironman suit and whoop your swarmeys with it!
lol I think paintball would be safer! In fact I think I have seen something like this on youtube, where some guy used image recognition hooked up to a paintball gun on a turret with a webcam or something like that.
As I said in a previous post I believe (or maybe it was an IM), I will not be able to do this until end of August.
When I first posted on this forum, I was not expecting so many enthusiastic people so quickly, I thought it may take me a month or so to drum up enough interest, so I started this thread a little on the early side without realising!
The kits should be ready around that time, which is when I will know how many I have for this challenge, at which point I will make an announcement.
Well great minds think alike, right? 
