Penny - An Arduino SHR

Introducing Penny. She's beginning her existence as a Start Here style robot. However, she's based on an Arduino Mega.

• Video 1: Early testing of the servo and Sharp IR sensor used to test my code.
• Video 2: Penny prototyped on a breadboard and running fine

Chassis

I re-used the motors, wheels and chassis from my original SHR, which has been gathering dust for a while.

Penny is configured back-to-front from the old SHR, with her drive wheels in the lead. I set the Sharp IR sensor back as far as practical, since it doesn't work well closer than 10 cm anyway.

The messy breadboard will get cleaned up. I plan to use Ro-Bot-X's Arduino shield for building robots, which will take care of .some of that wiring for me.

Update 2010-10-05: I have received the Ro-Bot-X designed Arduino shield and gave Penny an upgrade. Look at her now. Quite a difference!

Code

Penny 1.0 is based on a straight translation of fritls' Start Here code for the Picaxe. This is my first Arduino robot, so I wanted to start simple. I'm very pleased with the result.

I have attached the original code as well as an updated version that is fit for the Arduino shield and adds a backup function.

Electronics

I'm using an SN754410NE dual h-bridge motor driver. No other electronics yet.

Execution

As you can see in the 2nd video, Penny is working fine. I adjusted some parameters, like how far away she reacts to an obstacle. There's plenty of room for enhancement of the basic SHR code, and I'll use Penny as a platform for learning more about  the Arduino.

Future

The future is bright for Penny. I have a lot of possible enhancements with an Arduino Mega as the brain power. We may see features like:

• Wheel encoders
• PWM
• Line following
• Edge/cliff detection
• More actuators
• Perhaps... penmanship