spicyomelet.com

Well, it all started a while ago… almost a year, now that I think about it, I decided out of the blue that I was to build a robot. Here I am a year later… no robot yet, but a whole lot more knowledge than I started out with. In an attempt to show off, keep track of what I’m doing, and have some motivation to actually do something, I have decided to dedicate this page to the progress of my bot. Heres what I got so far. Enjoy.

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June 14, 2009
So far the bot is a gray box sitting on my desk which looks exactly like a computer. Oh yes, it is a computer! It’s a clunker from a few years ago, I installed Ubuntu on it and started writing the interface/AI in Python. I’ll post some pictures soon and will explain things in more detail.

July 6, 2009
It’s been a while since I’ve posted my progress on the bot. I actually have been busy doing a lot of research and looking for materials. I have written the basic polling loop for my robot in Python making use of pySerial and pyParallel. pySerial is used to communicate between the Arduino which will provide an onboard interface as well as handle the sensors. pyParallel is simply used for relay control. I have found some 5 volt relays in a catalog, which I will order soon, that will plug into my Parallel breakout board to control motors.

I also need to get a drivetrain of some sorts. I am quite fond of a lil Powerwheels Jeep that I could hack a  bit to suite my needs. Or I just need to build one myself… eh… idk

I’ve been doing all my development on the robot’s logic on my laptop, which will not be the main computer for this project, so I’m hoping that it all ports over well to my soon-to-be-bot.

August 1

Well today is the day… I finally ordered everything I needed to complete this project… ex car battery. We’ll see how this all goes down!

August 14

I received my orders in the mail a few days ago, but have been busy… sorry for the delay!

Pictured  is the current state of my robot… proof of concept.
The first picture shows how I will power the computer responsible for controlling the robot. From a 12 VDC lawn mower battery by
way of a power inverter I shall provide power for an estimated single hour of runtime. Now about the motors!
They are 12VDC motors with a gear box reducing the output to 32 RPM. They are not fast, but do provide the torque nessesary
to drive the robot around its environment.

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