Author Topic: have you built the $50 robot? (Read 72139 times)

pomprocker · « **Reply #60 on:** August 20, 2008, 11:59:27 AM »

yeah and attach some paddle wheels

[img width= height=]http://www.rceasy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/4741_01_jp.jpg[/img]

$50 duck boat

[img width= height=]http://www.gbpflag.org/files/46/_photos/Duck%20boat%20leading%20the%202006%20Youth%20Pride%20parade.jpg[/img]

Penth · « **Reply #61 on:** August 20, 2008, 12:11:30 PM »

Excellent.

paulstreats · « **Reply #62 on:** August 20, 2008, 05:11:16 PM »

Quote

Don't deny me my right of angering my wife over something trivial.

Its every mans privelidge!

chems · « **Reply #63 on:** August 29, 2008, 06:30:23 PM »

hello people, i live in england London and i discoverd this website not long ago and thought " ouuuu wouldn't a robot like this one look nice on my personal statement??" and i decided to start!! first of all this project isn't only about my P.S. because i honestly like evrything that has to do with elecrtonics etc.: i've modyfied my psp, earphones, pc, ipod etc... and now, brace yourselves MY Project!!:
http://s538.photobucket.com/albums/ff345/reubeu16/

ert481 · « **Reply #64 on:** September 04, 2008, 12:38:07 PM »

i've built it it works good except for the led light dont work

Webbot · « **Reply #65 on:** September 04, 2008, 03:31:36 PM »

Ed1380,
You've got a link to my page for the $50 robot as your signature!
I'm honoured!

waymental · « **Reply #66 on:** September 06, 2008, 05:00:53 PM »

I finally put my $50 dollar robot together. I am working on some of the last minute things. The body is made from a box for now. I have asked a few questions getting to this point and I am sure there will be many more to come.

Joesavage1 · « **Reply #67 on:** January 14, 2009, 09:46:59 AM »

Im gonno build soon, should cost me about £45.04 excluding velcro, some good plastic (for base ect...), and ill need to buy wire (well its in the misc list),
ill post pics when i got em =D, also it would be interesting to see a code which programed the robot to go away from light i imagine this could be easy but havnt learnt the programming lanhuage for the robots yet!

Thanks

Joe

cooldog · « **Reply #68 on:** January 14, 2009, 02:45:44 PM »

Quote from: Joesavage1 on January 14, 2009, 09:46:59 AM

it would be interesting to see a code which programed the robot to go away from light

just reverse the side you put the photocells on

Joesavage1 · « **Reply #69 on:** January 27, 2009, 11:59:59 AM »

Quote from: cooldog on January 14, 2009, 02:45:44 PM

Quote from: Joesavage1 on January 14, 2009, 09:46:59 AM
it would be interesting to see a code which programed the robot to go away from light

just reverse the side you put the photocells on

I would prefer a CODE which could do this as i want to keep the same robot; also do any of you have a link for a programming tutorial in AVR Studio 4.

Thanks

Joe

Admin · « **Reply #70 on:** January 31, 2009, 10:51:00 AM »

I'm compiling a playlist of all the $50 Robot videos you guys have made. Please post them here to get yours included!

(expect a lot of hits to your videos)

Synthesetic · « **Reply #71 on:** February 18, 2009, 11:06:46 PM »

Finally, after a few months of research, reading the tutorials and waiting on money/parts deliveries, I have completed my $50 robot. For me, the total expense was over $200 due to the things I needed for the project (Soldering Iron, Multi-Meter, Work Light, Went with the $34 AVR ISP MkII Prog, etc), and shipping.

It was a great learning experience, and I really enjoyed it even though I pulled my hair out multiple times and I am now taking Rogaine.

Initially I built a board before I had ordered my servos and IR sensors. This was also before I invested in a pair of wire strippers because I thought I could rough it with the "Lighter and Fingernail/Bite" stripping method. I didn't exactly know what went wrong with this board, but it was obviously my wiring. In the end, I popped two ATMega168's and decided to rebuild the board using strippers and my gained experience from the first attempt.

The second board came out much better, and its nearly identical to the one depicted in the tutorial. I'm being lazy this evening, so I'll post pictures later.

I also had ordered a few replacement chips, two ATMega8's and two ATMega168's. I figured out the hard way that the hold_servo.hex wasn't compiled for the ATMega168, and I think for some reason the 168 was causing me to have issues programming from AVR Studio to the Microcontroller. I am currently using the ATMega8 for simplicity sake in uploading the stock code from the tutorials.

This beast is made out of velcro, electrical tape, super glue, and left-over plastic from an HP 1210 all-in-one printer I dismantled. The wheels were stolen from a cool toy I bought at goodwill for $1, and had two of each wheel on two separate arms, for a total of four (duh). I initially wanted to modify each arm to use for differential drive without a castor (similar to a track system but with wheels). But, the slower RPM of the servo during code run time combined with the gear set of the toy arms, at full speed each toy wheel spun extremely slow and would've made the bot crawl. So I directly mounted the wheels with some screws I had that fit the whole in the stock round servo-horn.

Currently I have tested it with the $50 Stampy IR Code:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0XD0QeoLuI

And the wall avoidance code mod for the $50 IR(http://www.societyofrobots.com/robotforum/index.php?topic=3542.0):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvLb-lxiKMY

pomprocker · « **Reply #72 on:** February 20, 2009, 01:47:17 AM »

ahhh crappy video:
http://www.vimeo.com/3293393

cyclopediatechtilon · « **Reply #73 on:** February 22, 2009, 10:00:26 AM »

hey guys heres my first autonomus bot
i know it looks damn ghetto but its good for a kid
i will be adding the photosensors soon

cyclopediatechtilon · « **Reply #74 on:** February 22, 2009, 10:31:13 AM »

hey how are they?

MrWizard · « **Reply #75 on:** February 22, 2009, 11:05:31 AM »

Nice and neat...have to say. Does anyone combined these parts with lego ?
I just finished the controller board today (still waiting for the ATmega168 though) soldering.

I am thinking of borrowing some lega parts from my son , because I want to create an alternative for the mindstorm (looks nice, but much money and limited).
Did anyone try this before ? May be some tips to share ?

Finnik · « **Reply #76 on:** May 08, 2009, 08:52:57 AM »

After a couple of weeks I've finally finished my robot! It was fun to work on and it's great to see it working after all the time I put into it. My main problem was finding all the parts in the Netherlands because I had almost no experience with electronics. But hey, it worked out alright.. although I' d rather not look at the price tag at the moment...

There is only one thing that I really do not understand. Why is the code given stating " LED_off()" where it should have been "LED_on()"? In the commentary besides it even says "turn LED on". This really puzzled me for a while because I saw the LED flashing on for a moment and then it stayed off. Of course a good look at the code helped out, but it would seem logical to me to have the correct function in the code, especially with the high level of beginners making this robot (including myself).

The rest of the tutorial was really helpful to me, you have my compliments.

Now, some pictures and a video:

Follow this link for more pictures.

tyknee · « **Reply #77 on:** May 27, 2009, 07:15:02 PM »

pictures:

Robot costed way more than $50, but it was fun. I've got it configured for the UART but not the bootloader yet. Just ordered the Sharp IR Rangefinder and some IR LED/Detectors as well to play with some simple line following.

I want to eventually have a rearwheel drive/frontwheel steering car that can follow lines. Going to go for vision eventually as well, but figured I would try the IR stuff (it's a hell of a lot cheaper and the wife isn't super pleased with my robot budget).

SmAsH · « **Reply #78 on:** May 28, 2009, 12:29:20 AM »

wow man that looks great, props to you!
i like the way you mounted the cds cells!

justkilintyme · « **Reply #79 on:** June 25, 2009, 09:51:00 PM »

I just finished the (slightly more than) $50 robot. I got all the parts from your list, and the AVR mkII programmer. the build was strait forward, using the recommended schematics/links. the major snag i ran into was with the AVR Studio software. I followed your instructions, but ran into the same problem after checking and double checking and redoing the steps for programming. I am running Windows Vista 64 bit, and was getting

Photovore_v1.c:108: fatal error: opening dependency file .dep/Photovore_v1.o.d: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
make: *** [Photovore_v1.o] Error 1
Build failed with 1 errors and 0 warnings...

and the missing stepchild or whatever the other common error is...

. I posted a question about it, but then after more searching, i found http://www.madwizard.org/electronics/articles/winavrvista. the directions tell you to replace a .dll file in the WinAVR \utils\bin folder. that fixed the problem right away.

a second problem i had was that the LED wouldn't come on after programing; pin 6 i think it is D4 which changes state to turn on the LED was staying at 5 vdc. I looked thru the code and changed the line that says
LED_off();//turn LED on
to
LED_on();//turn LED on

that fixed the state of pin 6, but my LED was backwards, so i changed polarity, problem solved. the rest is history, i used a switch plate cover for the chassis, velcro'ed the servos and battery, rubber banded on the waterbottle, plugged it in, and away it went.

total time spent was about 10 hours, not including all the reading i did ahead of time to see what the common problems were etc... Im sure i could spend a few more hours making a not so ghetto chassis.

thanks for the $50 robot plans, i think I'm going to have alto of fun with this new hobby.

Jesse

Webbot · « **Reply #80 on:** June 30, 2009, 03:32:58 PM »

The very fact that you had issues, but have managed to solve them because you understood the issues, means that you are set up for a long and fruitful future in robotics.
Well done. And why not post a 'vid' of your new beast!

ozbot · « **Reply #81 on:** July 25, 2009, 12:20:42 PM »

well, being in australia, twas slightly more than a $50 bot, but I did it.

old CD cases and ide cables for sensor wire, mechano wheels and support.

seems the atmega8 is slightly thicker than the standard IC sockets, so it does not sit well and will jump out if bumped to hard. I had to bend the pins inwards just for it to fit.....

anyways, I am now making my first PCB to correct this, and to upgrade the sensors.

edited for correction.....

GearMotion · « **Reply #82 on:** July 25, 2009, 12:24:02 PM »

Nice work!

Joker94 · « **Reply #83 on:** July 25, 2009, 06:08:11 PM »

it looks pretty damn good, and you made it look like awesome piece of work.

And another fellow Aussie

SmAsH · « **Reply #84 on:** July 25, 2009, 07:44:45 PM »

what do you mean by "seems the atmega8 is slightly thinner than the standard IC sockets", mine sat fine in its socket, are you sure you got the right socket, can you provide some pics?

ccdjr106 · « **Reply #85 on:** July 25, 2009, 08:39:30 PM »

i tried to build it but i messed up the building the microcontroller part

Metal Slug 2 · « **Reply #86 on:** July 25, 2009, 11:38:38 PM »

Its normal for the pins on the Atmega chips to be slightly "wider" than the IC socket. Unless im mistakes, im pretty sure admin mentioned in the $50 bot tut that you have to bend the pins on the Atmega8 for them to fit nicely into the socket.

ozbot · « **Reply #87 on:** July 26, 2009, 02:54:32 AM »

what do you mean by "seems the atmega8 is slightly thinner than the standard IC sockets", mine sat fine in its socket, are you sure you got the right socket, can you provide some pics?

oh, was tired put that the wrong way around. the socket is thinner than the chip, they are at least 1mm slightly wider. Jaycar said they would not get the atmel-socket in (unless I order like 500 of them....) so tis a home job.

metal slug, it still wont fit snug.....oh, well.....

SmAsH · « **Reply #88 on:** July 26, 2009, 03:41:20 AM »

well, you could always solder the chip directly to the board next time.
i ordered my socket from futurlec... i barely ever use jaycar unless its for hookup wire...

Joker94 · « **Reply #89 on:** July 26, 2009, 05:21:56 AM »

where do you get your etchibg acid from, futurlec to

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Author Topic: have you built the $50 robot? (Read 72139 times)

paulstreats