XBC Botball controller

I’m looking for a more capable robot controller and am interested in knowing if anyone has experience with the XBC controller used in the Botball kits. At around $300 they aren’t cheap but have some nice features like:

Works with InteractiveC. I used this quite a bit with my HandyBoard and it is still my favorite controller environment. It’s up to version 7 now!!

Has a color tracking camera that can quickly track multiple color blobs at once. (compare vs CMUcam2 can only track one color at a time.)

Built in motor control (4) including a PID using back emf! Also, 4 servo ports, 8 A/D ports and 8 digital ports.

Used with a GameBoy Advanced which gives you a nice color screen…

Here’s a cool 'bot that uses the controller to do some nice color tracking…

Not sure why it’s quite so much dough though…

Any comments or feedback?

-Drew

Are you signed up to SOR forum? I recently recommended someone the XBC and im not sure if it was you. But yes, I have 3 years experience with this bad boy. It is one of the most fun things to combine with lego, ever!

IC has never let me down, its one of easiest control environments ever made. I participate in Botball tournaments in New York every year which uses these controllers.

It takes about 1 hour to fully charge, the more hours you give it, the higher performance. Its very smart, I had cheap Hobbico 15 dollar servos and motors which the XBC treated as digital servo/motors. You can easily get position from them, set position, read voltage, control velocity, plus more. Its quite amazing for any hobby project actually. Theres a ton of C commands I dont know yet using IC, so the XBC is actually very very capable of much more.

Attach a gameboy on that biatch (any gameboy you want) and it’ll give you color camera feedback, and all the RGB/HEX readings of the camera including light points and anything else it detects. You can easily upload code to the latest XBC using a miniA-B cable which is provided for you, and of course as you know the INTERACTION tab is simply awesome. It will run any code while the XBC is connected to your computer at real time, and move servos/motors at your command without downloading the code every time.

Programming with the XBC is childs work, especially when the gameboy is attached to it (which is required btw). Hit the L/R triggers a few times and you’ll have more info at your hands. Put the robot down, go to the motor position and read the number; move the robots motors, itll give you the latest number of its position. From here you can do anything, plug the numbers into your code and your robot will repeat what you did by hand.

Its pretty awesome, please email me or PM me if you decide to buy it, ill show you around all the hidden things Ive figured out and you can show me how to use PID and backemf, which Im not the most knowledgable on. Ill post detailed pictures if you want, because that website only has 1 pic.

And also, how did you find that page of that robot that uses the XBC? To be honest, I have googled and googled and have yet to find one page of anyone who has used the XBC and documented it. If you find any more pages or can tell me what you searched to find it, please tell me! Im eager to learn more about the XBC but cant because its so tough to find others who have it. Hit me up in a private message, Ill help you out in exchange for some info on C :wink:.

Ah just found a full review on it, in PDF format, very detailed stuff:

kipr.org/papers/xbc-iros05.pdf

Wow,
I just read the whole artilcle! Yeah Randy Sargent and Fred Martin! Yeah 6.270! I never knew what happened to IC and the HandyBoard but I think it lives on in the XBC… I was leaning toward a Make Controller but IC, back-emf and color tracking are helping me understand why it’s twice as much $$.
What is the SOR forum? Sounds like I should sit in…

-Drew

The handyboards are outdated, they are replaced by the XBC now during Botball competitions. Trust me, one XBC = a super investment. Maybe this isnt convincing you, but these might:

charmedlabs.com/index.php?op … &Itemid=44
charmedlabs.com/index.php?op … &Itemid=44
charmedlabs.com/index.php?op … &Itemid=44

Oh, btw, I found the drifter bot after I posted my video on YouTube. I think it was the emergent tag… :open_mouth:
Anyway, now I all psyched thinking, do I know where my son’s GBA is, will my IC3 code run, how can I hide this from my wife, :laughing:

Thanks Karim for keeping me up…

-Drew

No problem. A GBA shouldnt be too hard to find, you can buy it attached with the XBC order if you choose to. They are cheap as heck now, you can get a refurbished one for 30 bucks or less if you really cant find a GBA (or dont want one with your order).

Please check the 3 videos in my previous post, theyll make you feel better :slight_smile:.