how EXACTLY do i program stuff?

[cheaposcientist]

  OK, I am totally new to robotics. I am in 7th grade, and want to build one for a science project. What is a very easy but effective way to program a simple robot to just navigate around stuff? Any tips at all appreciated, I am begging. Thanks for any info you can give!!!

[Admin]

The easiest way to program a robot is to buy a kit 

A decent kit would be under $100 . . .

Your other post said you were poor . . . but if you want easy you have to spend money.

The next easiest way is to not program at all, but but instead make a BEAM robot. Basically its hardwired circuitry. Search online, as many people post schematics.

here is an example:
http://robotroom.com/Appetizer.html

[cheaposcientist]

ok, thanks but the point of my project is to program an AI myself. is there a computer program u hook up to the microcontroller or something? sorry if my questions seem obvious, but im supa new to this. i came to this site to avoid buyin a kit. i just want to let it know to turn around obstacles . i meant easy as in the easiest way to do this from scratch. 

[Admin]

There is no 'easy way' to do it from scratch. No matter what you will have to spend money.

Check out this tutorial, it should help you understand the basics much better . . .

http://www.societyofrobots.com/robot_tutorial.shtml

You should ask yourself how much from scratch should it be . . . a kit, or buying major parts seperately, designing your own parts, or making your circuits out of lemons and paperclips . . . The experts tend to buy parts and assemble them into a robot, and rarely actually design the parts themselves. For example, why spend weeks to build a motor driver when you can buy one for $15?

[cheaposcientist]

i guess buyin the parts separately. ok ill check dat out. the tutorial , i mean.

[Brandon121233]

from past experience I think it depends on what kind of budget your on, right now I think Admin is finishing up his $50 robot tutorial, and I'll bet unless you have any parts lying around from previous projects, that about as low a cost you can expect to have for a beginner microcontroller based robot. Also just as a question, what if any programing experience do you have? I have taken a couple classes of C++ so I'm not even close to being an expert but if you plan on making some kind of "AI", unless you plan on just copying someones code or have help from someone who knows exactly what their doing, that can be QUITE an accomplishment. I'm definitely not trying to discourage you from building the robot you want, but if you have never built one before and have no programing or electronics backround, a simple kit might be that best way to go. I can tell you from experience, and I can bet many others have had similar experiences my first robot was based on a 555 timer chip to avoid walls and obstacles, I had lots of mechanical knowledge, and lots of electronics knowledge and it still came out to be pretty much a failure. I wish now that I had started with some kind of BEAM kit to get me going in the right direction. But anyway thats just my personal experience, you don't have to listen to any of it, and at all costs don't be discouraged, like Edison said "If at first you don't succeed, try try again!"

[Hal9000]

I think Admin posted this link (or similar) a while back

It's really quite comprehensive and seems to do stuff for PICs and the Arudino board, which looks really cool. Click the links in the top left corner for more information.

http://itp.nyu.edu/physcomp/Parts/IntroParts

I'm really eager to do this tutorial on that site

http://itp.nyu.edu/~raf275/meshnetworking/XBee/XBee_example.html

as it's going to be pretty simple. It's based on this board

http://www.arduino.cc/

That site has a lot of tutorials and code that you can play around with!




I always try and push these books to people new to the subject area, as they are fun and make me wonder why everyone doesn't have a copy to begin with:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/123-Microcontroller-Experiments-Evil-Genius/dp/0071451420/ref=sr_1_1/203-6935087-2798348?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1172926421&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Robot-Builders-Bonanza-Gordon-McComb/dp/0071468935/ref=sr_1_1/203-6935087-2798348?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1172926478&sr=8-1

They lay down many key concepts in a fun way.

[Tsukubadaisei]

Hi, my first post.

Before giving you any info or instruction, I think you should speak more.
Answer the following questions:

1)What do you want you robot to do? Be the most specific as possible.

2)How much money are you willing to spend?

3)How much time do you have available until the deadline?

4)What do you know about programming, eletronic circuits and mechanical desing?(

5)Do you have any partners?

If you can't answer those questions with confidence than forget about it.

[Eco19R]

If your just starting out and have little to no knowledge of electronics I would recommend something like the boe-bot made by parallax - 200$?.

If you have the money and some knowledge you can also go out and purchase a Microcontroller programmer and a compiler. You would also need to purchase all the microcontrollers support circuity along with some electronics tools - Soldering iron - mid range digital multi meter and some other things.

Doing it by scratch will probably cost way more then buying a kit unless you have all the necessary tools and knowledge.

So I would suggest the boe-bot.

[Brandon121233]

I think the number one important thing as a beginner is just not to give up. It is hard to get started not knowing what to do, I think the best thing is to get a book like the one mentioned above http://www.amazon.co.uk/Robot-Builders-Bonanza-Gordon-McComb/dp/0071468935/ref=sr_1_1/203-6935087-2798348?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1172926478&sr=8-1 or this one http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1893115445/robotroom-20, and just read it front to back. I read Robot Builders Bonanza about two months ago, and even having a little experience in robotics, I learned tons of new things from reading it. So its your choice you can spend the money if your impatient, and get an "assembly required" kit, or you can build it from scratch with help from one of the books. I would say thats the best way to go.