So after competing in FLL and FIRST I've decided to build a real robot...
A real robot!? ...Man you dont know how much I've wanted to do FIRST...I asked my school but there was no teacher support.
:'( Your also lucky your school has electronic classes...
With $300 I think you will be able to get all required tools, materials and components you will need to build the $50 robot and then some.
To get your started...
Order the components for the $50 robot from Digikey as the tutorial suggests, or buy a kit
here.
For things like the Soldering iron, solder,
helping hands (you need them, trust me!), and desoldering tools I would first search your local surplus shop. If that doesnt work out, you can try the
electronic goldmine.
For cheap components, including LED's, pin heades, capacitors, potentiometers, photoreistors etc. You can try
Tayda electronics.
For cheap servos, you can buy them from
Hobby King, or eBay (these will be clones from what I've heard).
For batteries, I suggest
this one (I got a couple, they are the Perfect size for robotics), with
this charger, or maybe even this
kit. Feel free to also just use AA and/or 9 volt batteries you have laying around if you want to cut costs.
As for building materials, well you can find them just about anywhere...cardboard, broken toys, etc. or take a trip to the hardware store for stuff like acrylic or plywood. (If you have the tools to machine it)
I also suggest going to your local dollar store and buying some velcro and/or double sided foam tape.
lastly, for your sensor needs, I suggest looking around the following shops:
Sparkfun,
seedstudios,
Polulu, or reffer to
this page.
Good luck!
