Welcome to the Make: Robot Build forum topic! We've created this area specifically for discussion about the Make: Robot Build contest.
The forum is your place to brainstorm new ideas, share tips on cool robot-building techniques, ask questions, and talk about all things robotics! So, if you haven't yet, be sure to register for the forum and join in!
Hi Matt, this looks like a fun contest, way to go. I can't wait to see what people build. One question I had -- those servos in the Jameco parts bundle aren't continuous rotation, right? Maybe we should post a link to a tutorial for converting them?
I've only recently started reading Make after stumbling across the website and I'm excited by all the projects I've seen so far. Then this came up and it's all I could hope for (I'm a tinkerer and car builder so I've been wanting to catch up. Especially with Arduino)
Thanks John! Thats a good point, the servo motors in the kit only have 180 degrees of rotational movement by default. We'll be posting step-by-step instructions on how to mod them to be continuous rotation in the coming weeks, however if you want to get started now, there is a great tutorial here:
There is also a more advanced way to mod the steppers, which lets you take advantage of the motor controller that is already built into the servos. We decided it would be more informational to build our own controllers, but if you are interested here you can check it out here:
Hi Jake, Awesome, great to see you here! I'm really looking forward to the contest as well. Don't hesitate to chime in with your thoughts as we get rolling!
Speaking of the Jameco parts bundle, it appears they don't include the necessary USB interface. Does the kit require a 5v or 3v interface and will building one be part of the tutorials?
Seems strange they would leave it out considering everything else they bundled in.
I am getting ready to order my parts bundle from Jameco right now. I coached my first First Lego League robot team this past year, and really need to get to know more about robotics before next year! Thank you, MAKE, for such a fantastic magazine and web site. I am looking forward to this build.
You'll need a 5v USB interface to program the Ardweeny. We didn't include it in the kit because we thought that people might already have them. We stock a cable in the Maker Shed that will work:
Hah! It looks like Matt answered at the same time with the same info! So, I'll just add:
The other reason we didn't ask Jameco to include the cable is that it would have raised the cost of the kit by quite a bit.
There are also instructions online for how to make your own (one involving hacking a cheap Nokia phone cable -- which uses TTL (Transistor–Transistor Logic) communications). But we haven't tried that ourselves yet. We may do that during this project and document it. Or perhaps someone else here has done this and wants to share what they know. Even tho this is a contest, we're hoping to encourage people to share ideas, expertise, etc. to help others, especially experienced botbuilders helping newbies.
Rank newb here. I want to do this contest. The structure will help me I think.
The Jameco kit has an Ardweeny which is described as "bread-board friendly Arduino-compatible". My dumb question is do I want this or do I want just a full Arduino? I have nothing now.
So glad you're going to be participating. And no problem being a newbie and no question is a dumb one (except maybe the ones we're too afraid to ask). Okay, that sounded totally new agey, I apologize.
The Ardweeny IS a "full Arduinio," at least in the sense that it's got all of the *essential* electronics to drive an Arduino microcontroller (MCU) on a circuit board that piggybacks onto the actual (included) Atmel ATmega328 chip. Other Arduino systems do have more features, most don't plug into breadboards and are free-standing. The Ardweeny board doesn't have power regulation on the board (which, of course, IS essential). For this project, we'll be using the Solarbotics Breadboard Voltage Regulator kit (and a 9v battery). The Ardweeny has all of the inputs/outputs (I/O) of other ATmega328-based Arduino systems, so there's more than enough I/O and computing power for what we'll need in this project.
In addition: To get the Ardweeny to communicate with a PC I need either the $20 cable above, or $13 Sparkfun little board thing and an extra USB cable I might have lying around. Plus some cable to get the Sparkfun board to talk to the Ardweeny??
The Ardweeny CAN run on the power provided by the USB interface cable, but then it'd have to be tethered to your computer, so it couldn't be autonomous. To get on-board power, we need a regulator. Most MCU boards (frequently called "modules") come with this power sub-circuit built in, but this Arduino, in trying to be teeny-tiny, does not.
And yes, you need either a cable with the electronics built into it (a so-called TTL-to-USB Serial interface cable) or a "breakout board" which allows you to use a standard USB cable with the breakout plugged into the Ardweeny.
Thanks. I appreciate it. I will shut up now and wait for the "prep phase where we'll post overview articles here about basic robot design and construction" and then the part where we get time to "gather needed parts and supplies".
No need to "shut up." Ask whatever you like. Share any thoughts you're having about bot designs. Have you ever done any sort of electronics projects? Any programming of any kind? If you haven't, no worries. We'll cover all of what you'll need to know.
I can solder. I've built several kits. I built one of the battle symets but the pager motor I used wasn't strong enough to make it turn. (Or I made it too heavy. LOL. I'll turn it into a flag waver.) Horribly interested in pummers and noctournals. Can never figure out which pin is which on a 1381J. I can write VB Script, ASP, and some Javascript. I've written some BASIC. I have no experience with any of the versions of C. My boy and I are trying to learn how to do Lego Mindstorms programming. (When I was in high school "programming" was Fortran we did on punch cards. We got the results back the next day on green bar and turned that in for a grade.) I think I can do this but we will find out.
I've got an Arduino sitting around have been doing some of the intro LED exercises and now am interested in motor control. I got a continuous rotation servo up an running. I don't want to copy the bot design that was pictured so I'm exploring a vertically oriented CD design.
Like Hayabusa says "I think I can do this but we'll find out."
Recieved my Jameco parts yesterday (in a snowstorm). I immediately had to order the Sparkfun FTDI breakout board and I am guessing that a lot of people like me that have worked with the standard arduino don't have this part or the appropriate cable.
Decided it was time to learn robotics, considering I've "coached" (more like supervised) our robotics team for the last 2 years. This may not be a "dumb" question, but certainly a lame one: Can the programming for this be done on a Mac? And if so, how? Took programming ages ago (in C...and if you want to go waaay back, Pascal and LOGO), so it's been a while.
I don't think I'll be ordering the Jameco kit (no matter how much I really would like to) - so I'll try to find some things locally (which isn't always easy). Any recommendations for parts that can be found at RadioShack?
On Monday I finally switched two servos to continuous rotation. I couldn't help myself so i ended up electric taping them to a CD, programming basic controls into a spare arduino. then tethering the monstrosity to my laptop. I'm excited to start building the real deal.
@plainsmanB Sorry about that :-/. Most of the small, lower-cost Arduino clones don't have the usb converter built in. The cable itself is a mini USB B-type cable, which is used on a bunch of other things like cell phones, digital cameras, and other gadgets.
Personally, I usually use the Sparkfun USB adaptor boards along with barebones board Arduino clone, since you only have to buy the cable once, and the boards themselves are cheaper than the official Arduino boards. This doesn't help if you don't already have the connector, though.
@Hayabusa It takes a couple of steps, but I think you can do it. The major things you need to do are to take 4 screws off to open up the case, unsolder two metal connectors to disconnect the motor from the motor control board, use a wire cutter to cut off a small tab on one of the gears, then put it back together. The good thing about doing it yourself is you get to play around with the servo guts and learn about how they work.
Matt.Mets thanks for having discussed the cable here so that when I started work on the ardweeny I already understood that I might need a different connection. I have done some soldering but I had a little trouble with the voltage regulator due to the size of the pc holes, any advice? I increased the heat setting on the iron, which seemed to help.
@plainsmanB: Are you talking about the rectangular voltage regulator chip on the breadboard voltage regulator kit? Increasing the temperature a bit to help solder a big piece sounds like a good strategy, just don't turn it any higher than you need to. You also might want to try using some flux- it helps keep the metal from oxidizing, allowing the solder to flow easier. Regular hobby solder actually has flux in it (that's why it is called 'flux core'), but you can purchase little tins with just flux in them.
Hey guys! I'm new to the Make scene but have been a robot enthusiast for a while now and looking forward to this build.
Matt, I have a few questions if you don't mind. - Are we required to use Arduino? I've still got PICs and a propeller board laying around and haven't jumped on the arduino bandwagon yet - When uploading designs to flicker, you want just handrawings/sketchup/whatever? - In the competition "requirements" it states the not needs to have the ability to expand its sensor systems. I was assuming the initial build would include all the required sensor. Are you guys suggesting that the not should be upgradable, in a sense not 100% soldered to allow different sensors?
Thanks! Can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!
The Jameco bundle has a "L293D Quadruple Half-H Driver" which I have no idea how to work with and I am hoping you will tell us (hint hint).
Would this one do as well? It looks like it might be higher capacity/more robust. Is that crucial? http://www.acroname.com/robotics/parts/R6-754410.html "The SN754410 is a quadruple high-current half-H driver designed to provide bidirectional drive currents up to 1A at voltages from 4.5V to 36V.
@johnny__b: Howdy! Glad to hear you are excited about the contest.
- Use whatever system you are most comfortable with, the Arduino is not a requirement. You could even make your own processor out of transistors if you want to :-). - Any of those would be great! - The expandability bit is so you can do something else with the robot after the competition is over. In the basic version, we will be using two 'bump' switches to detect that we hit a wall, so that is all you really need to do. That is great fun, but doesn't usually have a lot of staying power, so if might make a nice second project to hook up different sensors (IR, sonar, magnetic, radiation, whatever). Feel free to solder it together, though!
@Hayabusa The SN754410 looks pretty comparable to the L293D, except that the L293D has clamp diodes built into it. You can probably get away without them for this project (these are pretty low-power robots we are talking about!), however they are a good idea to use because they can protect the driver chip from voltage spikes caused by the DC motors turning on and off.
And yes, we will certainly provide an explanation of how to use them!
I haven't gotten my kit yet, but it is on the way. I've been doing some research on working with polycarbonate plastics, such as CD-ROMs are made from, and came across the following article on machining and fabricating such plastics.
I don't know exactly how much thermoforming a CD-ROM can take, since it has an aluminum layer, but I am interested in trying. Does anyone have any input on machining CD-ROMs?
@KurtWM No luck with the hair dryer on thermoforming. (didn't heat it up enough) I tried the long stem candle lighter and got enough heat to bend it but couldn't apply it evenly and got more of a warped disc than the uniform bend I was going for. I also tried to put the disc in between two curved blocks to press it while I was heating it and didn't get the desired results. I have almost abandoned the idea however have not tried the oven for fear of contaminating a food prep area. The sheet metal scissors seemed to cut a straight line with no cracking on an unheated disc. The data layer was slightly frayed at the edges though. Let me know how you make out.
Good conversation here, folks. Just a clarification on Matt's comment:
"...we will be using two 'bump' switches to detect that we hit a wall, so that is all you really need to do."
You don't actually HAVE to use bump switches if you don't want to. You just have to end up with a robot that avoids obstacles in a space. The parts bundle from Jameco has two lever switches in it to accomplish this by way of bumpers, whiskers/feelers, etc. But feel free to use your own hardware/divine your own way of accomplishing this goal.
And BTW, to reiterate: You DO NOT have to use the Jameco kit, Arduino, or any other hardware we're talking about or making available. This is purely a convenience and a way of getting newbies involved. You are free to use your own microcontroller, motor controller, sensor system, chassis design, etc. We just wanted to offer the easiest path possible for those who might otherwise be timid about participating. Use of the Jameco bundle will in NO WAY factor into the contest decision making.
The only three main stipulations of the contest are that: 1) CD/DVD media must be a main building component, 2) the bot needs to be able to negotiate/avoid obstacles in a space, and 3) it needs to be extensible for further sensor systems (which basically means it has to be further programmable and have room on it to add additional sensors, which will pretty much be a given as long as it's programmable and there's any space on it add sensor hardware).
Re: Hacking servos I'll try and find the illustration from my Absolute Beginner's Guide to Building Robots book, drawn by Mark Frauenfelder, that shows the steps to turning a servo into a continuous rotation motor. It's actually quite easy.
BTW: I LOVE this exploration of shaping/thermoforming/cutting the CD media. I've never tried anything like that. Success to that would create a whole new world in terms of how you could design the body of your bot.
@garethb2 My first experiment was to place a CD--aluminum layer up--into a small Pyrex mixing bowl so that it rested horizontally, suspended by only the outer circumference of the disk against the inside of the bowl, at about 3/8-inch from the bottom of the bowl.
I preheated an oven to 375-degrees and placed the bowl inside, figuring that, when the plastic reached the sag point, it should settle slightly into the bottom of the bowl, creating a very shallow concave shape. I wondered how the unyielding aluminum layer would react when the plastic began to soften and sag. At approximately 13-minutes the plastic began to sag. As expected, the aluminum layer did have an effect on the movement of the plastic; the plastic disk warped slightly in few places around the edges because of the tension caused by the aluminum. However, I let the disk stay in the oven until the 20-minute mark, and the plastic pretty much settled completely into the bottom of the bowl.
After removing the bowl from the oven and allowing it to cool, I was able to easily pop the disk out of the bottom to inspect it. The aluminum had become slightly wrinkled in places, where it had separated from the disk as the plastic deformed. The plastic itself looked fine, except for where it had rested directly on the bottom of the bowl; there it had obtained ring of slightly rough texture, probably caused by tiny bubbles in the plastic. I don't yet know if this was due to the extended heat, or to moisture in the plastic, or to the fact that it is a fairly old Pyrex bowl and the bottom is somewhat scratched.
My next experiment will be to score the aluminum layer in a radiating pattern with a razor blade and to heat the disk with the aluminum layer down. My hope is that the scoring will allow the aluminum to separate slightly so that it will not inhibit the movement of the plastic so much.
@ KurtWM Thanks for your input on the oven technique. I was able to adapt that in order to nicely curve a disc over the outside of a ceramic kitchen canister which produced just the shape I was looking for. The shape was not as extreme as a dish shape so there was no wrinkling of the aluminum layer.
On another note I was messing around with edge lighting the CDs with LEDs I'm sure I'll incoperate some type of decorative lighting into this project maybe a two way power switch for a day running and night running mode. Just ideas because I've got to get the basic design worked out first and assembled. Wednesday night things will start to take shape.
@video_records I like your idea of edge lighting. I was just looking at a Plexiglas sign by the register at a local McDonalds that uses embedded LEDs to highlight the edges of the sign and some etched lines within the sign. It is a cool effect.
But I haven't seen all the articles that were supposed to be posted. "Editors will post a series of articles on Make: Online that introduce all of the subsystems of a robot and what one needs to consider in designing a 'coasterbot'.”
@Hayabusa We're working on it! Our schedule for the materials is slightly off from the span of each week's work on the bots. The newsletters are going to be coming out each Wednesday, but I think from now on, I'm going to post some background materials related to the theme of that week's build on the site on Monday. So there'll be content Monday and Wednesday. And we're about to start a Robot Design topic here in the Forum.
And, from now on, we'll start a new topic here each Friday for each new build phase. The whole contest has some time-flexibility built in 'cause we figured people wouldn't be working on it exactly within the week for each phase and there's two weeks at the end to finish up your project. One could actually wait until the educational content and newsletters, etc. are all posted before even starting, if you wanted to.
But we'll try to be more on track going forward. Bear with us, it's a lot of material to gather and create. In the meantime, feel free to ask any questions in the Robot Design topic.
I have loved robots for years and in my professional life teach some programming of industrial robots. I also have a maintenance background so understand the basics of the systems as well. I have virtually no electronics background and thus this is the portion of the build that will be the most challenging and possibly the most exciting for me.
To this end I am still confused on the cabling issue. I have as of yet to assembly my Aurdino and the power supply module that came with the Jameco kit so that may be part of my confusion. I looked at the USB-TTL cable and don't think I have anything like that, most of my spare cables have the firewire type end to USB. My question is this, if I get the FTDI Basic break out board, would this be all I need to connect to the Aurdino board for programming? This is working on the belief that the voltage regulator board in the kit will power the Aurdino for running purposes and the cabling being discussed is for programming communication.
Sorry to beat this topic to death and thanks in advance for the help. .
The USB-TTL cable is kind of a specialty cable, so you would only have it if you had already ordered it for a different electronics project. It actually has the same chip on it as the USB-breakout board cable, but it is encapsulated in plastic so you can't see it.
The USB-breakout board is a more traditional breadboard, with the TTL programming interface on one side, and a USB mini-B jack on the other side of it. You'll need a USB mini-B cable to connect it to your computer:
The only difference here is that the mini-B cable is a standard cable, used by a good number of electronic devices (cameras, PDAs, MP3 players), so it is possible that you already have that piece. If not, you'll need to order it along with the breakout board.
I'm trying to find my way around the Ardweeny by going through Getting Started with Arduino. I've successfully completed the first task, making the LED blink. The second task involves using a pushbutton to control the LED (I'm guessing that I can't use the reset button on the Ardweeny for this purpose), but I'm not sure which pin is which. Does anyone know where I can find that kind of documentation?
Started my chassis design. I saw the mention of shaping the CD's which gave me the idea for my chassis. Pretty cool. I have made one chassis, but I want to try it again and see if I can make it a bit better.