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Author Topic: How Should I Proceed?  (Read 2092 times)

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Offline Gokz1000Topic starter

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How Should I Proceed?
« on: December 03, 2008, 03:49:22 PM »
Before I begin I just want to point out that I have never built robots before, but seeing as my Major is Computer and Electrical Engineering I figure waiting around for it to be taught in class is boring and I might as well get a head start on robotics.

I want to build a pair of differential drive robots very similar to the $50 Robot tutorial on this site. The only modifications I want to make is to make them "battlebots". I want to add  IR sensors onto the robots and have an LED light up when they have been shot by another robot. Also, to allow for further modifications, I want to allow the robots to communicate with my computer via Bluetooth. The reason for this being that, if the project goes well, It should be a piece of cake to write a program on my computer to do things such as keep score and add special "game modes" or what not. But, that is all for the future.

My question is this, In terms of drive, I see two options.
1) Go out and buy some cheap remote control cars, tear them apart, and use to included hardware with the servos I buy for the $50 robot to drive it around. Also buy the microcontroller and have that operate separately from the drive system and take car of receiving hits (turn on and LED to show that it has been shot). I see a problem with this in that it might be hard to get the remote control car hardware to activate an IR device, but I have never tried this of course. In this scenario the bluetooth would not be required unless I wanted to communicate with the computer for score keeping or something like that.

2) Buy the bluetooth stuff, hook them up, and then control the robots via bluetooth. That way I could control them by keyboard, gamepad, or even hook a wii remote to it. Also since everything is controlled via microcontroller I could add things such as "number of bullets" or have the robot stop receiving input once it has been shot to show that it has "died"

So before I get started on this project (In about a week or so), I like to get some opinions on which would be the better option. I'm looking at a few deciding factors,
 1) Cost (if adding the bluetooth is going to run the total up too much, I would rather avoid it)
 2) Modifiable - I really like the idea of driving the robots around with my wii remote, even if the wii remote had to talk to the computer and the computer relayed the messages to the robot, I still think it would be really cool.
 3) Difficulty - This being my first robotics project, If bluetooth is really too hard to handle, I might decide to scrap it.
 4) How much will I learn - It kinda feels like if it go out and buy two remote control cars, I'm not really going to learn anything since everything will already be put together. I mean, why go through building all this stuff If I can just go buy two RC cars and stick laser tag equipment on top of them and achieve the same result if not for the fact that I'll learn valuable knowledge doing this. 

What do you guys think?

Thanks,

Offline Robotics Guy

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Re: How Should I Proceed?
« Reply #1 on: December 04, 2008, 10:06:24 AM »
There are some things you need to consider if you do want to use an RC car. First of all, most RC cars have one motor in the back to drive the rear wheels, and servo driven steering in the front for turning. It would be significantly easier (IMHO) to use a differential drive system, like a tank for example. You might consider buying a vex hardware kit (with wheels, etc.) to build a frame for your vehicle.

I don't know what microcontroller is recommended on this forum, but a PIC18, or dsPIC would be more then adequate for what you want to do. I've never done this myself, but I believe bluetooth can be interfaced with microcontrollers via RS-232. Here are some bluetooth modules on sparkfun.com:
 
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=blue+tooth&x=0&y=0&search_section=products

I don't know anything about the Wii remote, but if you can get numbers on the computer - and get the bluetooth working - then yeah, you could send those drive values to your 'bot.

As far as difficulty goes, probably ANY first project's going to be hard. I'm working on my first robot with a dsPIC, and am having a very hard time with it. But, it's fun and rewarding, so it's worth it.

You'll definitely learn a lot about electronics, microcontrollers, embedded programming, RS-232 communication, etc.. I kind of agree with you about the RC car thing. I would however still recommend buying a pre-made chassis if you're like me and don't like building it yourself. Something like a vex hardware kit is nice because you can modify it, turning it into a new robot design for a future project.

Good luck,

Nathan

 


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