A Stamply like (Object folowing robot wit IR Rangefinder) robot

[SUTO the G]

Can a Stamply like (Object folowing robot wit IR Rangefinder) robot be accomplished with a different steering mechanism (not differential drive) without running in to big problems? I mean using almost the same software only with minor adjustments, and same electronics?

[newInRobotics]

What different steering mechanism do You have in mind?

[SUTO the G]

Like this!

[newInRobotics]

With rack and pinion steering mechanism You loose maneuverability, compared to differential steering. As differential steering bot (such as Stampy) can spin on the spot, it makes it easy to track/follow object, because there is no need to make partial/full 3 point turns in order to approach detected target. This is not possible with rack and pinion steering mechanism, so following object becomes more complex task which has to be dealt with in software. Also, software orchestrating Stampy drives 2 motors, hence steering is achieved by changing PWM ratio between them, where with steering system You want, there is only 1 servo to do all the work, so turn_left(), turn_right() code from Stampy will not drive robot the same way in this case, hence some code will have to be re-written.

Can I ask, what exactly are You planning to use Your robot for?

[SUTO the G]

I want to use it for object following!

[SUTO the G]

For a school project! I want it to do the simple differential one! But my teacher insisted on doing something with 4 wheels and a steering mechanism!

[newInRobotics]

If Your bot is not going to be used as a sumo bot, then there shouldn't be any bigger problems while tracking hand-held object that does not change its trajectory radically.

[SUTO the G]

Aha! And the changing of the software shouldn`t be too difficult no?

[newInRobotics]

Difficult is relative term and can mean different things to different people. Most definitely You'll have to write Your own function for steering, whether it is, or it is not difficult to You - I don't know. Also, I've never seen Stampy's code, so I cannot say what other changes would be appropriate. I guess You'll have to try it Yourself and see if it's something You can do.

Good luck

[SUTO the G]

Thanks man you guys are great! Can you help me get the uploaded software in a Visual Studio project format?

[newInRobotics]

Can you help me get the uploaded software in a Visual Studio project format?

Duplicate question? Visual Studio is for Windows only and not for micrcontroller programming.

[SUTO the G]

The 50_robot_sharpIR software that the admin uploaded! I thought that somehow it can be converted to Visual Studio Project file! So I can understand it better, because in Visual Studio you can go to the declaration and definition of every variable, function, macro etc.

[newInRobotics]

I thought that somehow it can be converted to Visual Studio Project file!

It can be, simply open new C project and copy&paste source-code, link all of the required libraries and You're done. I've never tried it, but I'd expect to get some sort of errors, as VS is Windows IDE and is not intended for microcontroller code.

In my opinion much better thing to do is to get AVR Studio (which is based on Visual Studio, so it looks familiar to VS users), as it comes with all standard libraries to all AVR microcontrollers (obviously all 3rd party libraries still have to be linked manually), also it contains a simulator which is very useful to understand what is happening inside Your chip.