Project Raptor

This is my first project that hasnt been a kit, and i wanted to do it from scratch. its not quite a sarm in the sense that ive only built one robot, and that it only commnicates with one other robot, but we all have to start somewhere now dont we?

I called it Raptor because, as im sure all you jurassic park fans will know, raptors hunt in packs! the methods of communication were to be simple (and cheap :D) so that i could get a feel for how it was gonna work, so it communicates (with my BOE bot) via IR, so i got an IR phototransistor and an IR LED for them to chat with. i havent written any programs as yet because  havent finished building it, the only reason im not doing that right now is that doc told me to take it easy, so i thought i might make my first post (F1R5T P05T tehe).

im going off on a tangent a bit so heres some piccys of what ive been doing before i bore ya to death :)

well thats it for the 23rd august- see ya!

Ok no piccys today because im not too happy, im gonna get an motor driver ic (the l293d) and dead bug it  so i can put it in the little space in the middle of my bot, this is because ill be needing t control my motors without my bs2 constantly resetting itself in attempt not to get fried. 

what have managed to do is mount everything and get the bumper switches working. ill gve you pictures once im in a better mood >:(. next time im custom buiding a pcb for my stamp to avoid this (goes into swearing frenzy).

but on the bright side it really wont be very expensive, so its not that bad (maybe an extra £5).

and thats all for aug 24th

well ive been hangin around for a while waiting for the stuf to arrive, and then i realised my orders didnt actually go through DO'H! so now everything is on its way. i havent been completely stranded by this hardware problem though- ive tested the whiskers and they work perfectly, and the boe-bot element has been programmed and the ir tracking system is working beautifully to the best of my ability to test it (which means it probably wont work come full on testing :/ bad programmer) and i actually saaw some emrgent behaviour- when no source was detected, the program cause it to circle until one was tracked! ill just see if i can get some of the piccys up :)

bit blurry there :(

there ya go!

id also like to bring up my rather clever/cheapo design for whiskers-

1) taped over the surface (because it conducts, and would short them out)

2) bent paperclips into shape with pliers (if anyone would like to see  close-up of this, feel free to ask.)

3) superglued them onto tape and soldered signal wires to pickups and one GND wire to the cross point of the whiskers (this also helps them bend correctly on impact with an object.)

4) um, nothing.

5) PROFIT!!!

nothing more to say here, signing off, september 5th