Society of Robots - Robot Forum
General Misc => Misc => Topic started by: Android19 on July 08, 2006, 08:53:36 AM
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Let me start off by sayin hi to everyone and how glad I am to find a forum full of information. I am new to robotics but I have done alot of researching and studying about building robots. I am looking to build my first one soon and have a pretty good idea of what I want.
Brain: OOpic 2 board
Motor Control: Mini Dual H Bridge
Vision: x2 Sharp IR Range Finder
Motors: x2 12V DC
Wheels: x2 Flat Neoprene Foam Tires
Batteries: ??
Base: Some type of aluminum or plastic
I want the robot to be able to avoid obstacles. I am not sure how to program everything together to make it do that. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
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Your list looks good to me . . .
Have you read the sharp IR article?
http://www.societyofrobots.com/sensors_sharpirrange.shtml
it explains how to avoid obstacles with it
as for the base, i recommend putting a lot of time in the design phase planning it out on paper/pencil or in CAD. it will save you a lot of time/money the better you plan things out . . .
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ITonight I got a whole list of ideas for the body and picked one and detailed it out on the computer and on paper several times using different angles and measurements. What would be the easiest language to program the bot with? Also, I plan on making several more add ons to it in the future instead of building a whole other robot. All of this is incoporated into the design of course. Have you or anyone had any experience with the oopic?? Thanks
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I have never used the OOpic before but . . .
I browsed the OOpic2 site, and it claims 'Within the OOPic IDE programming environment, you can choose to use Basic, C or Java syntax for your scripts.'
Basic is by far the easiest. But C is more powerful with more features, if you have some programming experience.
The OOpic looks fairly good to me, meaning it looks simple enough for a beginner, yet has good features you can use in more complex robots later on . . .
Keep us updated on your OOpic experiences!
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Thanks, will do. ;D There is one problem ; I do not know how to program in basic. Here is what I want the robot to do move forward, scan, find path with least amount of obstacles, then take the path. How would I program the robot in basic to do that?
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Search their site for sample code. They should have all the basic functions available to copy.
If they dont have sample code, I highly recommend against buying their product ;D
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I found the code and it seemed pretty easy. Today I made a prototype of what the robot would turn out like. I found several things I liked and disliked about the design. Its amazing how many problems you can spot by putting squares of cardboard with names of parts on a tuppaware rectangle bowl. The only thing that stands out is the fact that I need a castor. The motors come up alittle far on the robot which leaves the back scraping on the ground when it moves. I think a castor should solve this problem.
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haha yea! i remember using legos to work out designs back in the day :P
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Ha ha! I thought about legos as my next step but I needed something more distinguished with the parts and everything. After I put all the protoype work together I don't have CAD so I used the next best thing....Paint! It works pretty well but I will definatly be looking into CAD for future use ;D
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Take a look at Google SketchUp (http://www.sketchup.com/) as well, it looks like a nice tool for getting a better virtual/visual idea of what you're trying to build.
As for a real-world physical analog, I've been using styrofoam bits and chunks.. companies I buy products from seem to want to keep me stockpiled in the stuff. ;D
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I havnt used google sketchup cause I can do autodesk with my eyes closed . . . but ive been considering recommending it to people on SoR for months now.
Anyone have thoughts on it? I was thinking of learning it so to write a tutorial on free 3D CAD . . .