January 2012
14 posts
8-(
I received the battery and tested my motors, and something is seriously wrong. Between the two outputs that I’m using on the motor shield, one only works in one direction, and the other has a constant ~20 RPM spin when it’s supposed to be stopped. I tried connecting the little DC motor that came with my Experimentation Kit and got the same response, so I know it’s not an issue...
The Drawing Board
While I wait for the new battery to arrive, I’ve started doodling a little in Google Sketchup. I’ve got some ideas for what I want the chassis to look like, but it’s obviously not a complete picture just yet. So far I’ve just drawn the 2 planer surfaces with 1” standoffs, plus the wheels. Overall diameter is 7”.
Check out the big brain on JonBot!
My practice paid off, as I was able to solder together the motor shield and so far it seems to be working well. I’ve recreated a few of the curcuits from my testing phase and they all run as designed.
The process was not without incident, however. I’ll just say that I now know how to unsolder, and one of the capacitors is a replacement from Radio Shack. Yeah, we’ll leave it at...
I am a giant person
I check the physical dimensions of every part before I order it, but inevitably when they arrive they seem much smaller than I thought they’d be. This gearmotor is an extreme case:
Do the Locomotion
Stage 1: “GO-BOT”
This will be the most challenging part of this project. The goal is to have a moving vehicle. I’ve ordered a bunch of parts that are being shipped, so while I’m waiting I can talk a little bit about my objectives.
While planning this project I’ve viewed quite a few videos of other people’s robot projects and it’s given me a very good...
I soldered! I'm a solderer!
Success!
Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for the internet, because without it I think I would have had much more trouble with my first soldering experience. These tutorials were very, very helpful.
Before I actually attempted assembling the Solder : Time clock I figured it’d be a good idea to practice on a couple dummy components. So while I was at Radio Shack getting the proper...
It's Solder : Time!
Ok, I think I’ve got the hang of putting together these circuits, and the programming part is just fun. However, it’s time to move forward.
The next stage will include assembling a motor shield to attach to my arduino (more about that later). That will involve soldering lots of little components onto a printed circuit board (PCB). I have never soldered a thing in my life, so I’m...
BRAAAINS!
I received my robot brain this week. The Arduino Uno is a microcontroller, a small computer that can receive signals from various input devices, process them, and send signals to various output devices. The processing is based on a program that I write on my computer and send to the arduino over USB. The program will automatically run whenever the unit is receiving power from either the USB...
The Plan
So I’m new at this. Building a robot requires skills in electronics, mechanics and computer programming. I have experience only in the latter. It would be foolish to try building my finished product right off the bat. With that in mind, I’ve developed a 4-stage plan. As any programmer knows, the counting starts with zero…
Stage 0: “NO-BOT”. In order to develop some...
