The next robot build newsletter comes out tomorrow, and will cover some basics on designing your robot. Have you started thinking about how to design your robot?
The only thing that you have to do as part of your build is to use a CD in a non-trivial way. Our basic design uses two CDs in a sandwich to form the body of the 'bot, but you don't need to use them in that manner. You could also use the CDs as the wheels, or maybe even bend the plastic to form different shapes- the sky is the limit! One thing that I think might be funny would be to poke a bunch of small holes in a CD, and use it to make a tiny hovercraft. Think it's possible?
What ideas do you have for your robot design? Post your thoughts, brainstorms, and links to your sketches here!
I've posted my "Rules for Roboticists" http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/03/rules_for_roboticists_1.html an excerpt from the "Robots Rules of Order" chapter in my book, _Absolute Beginner's Guide to Building Robots_.
I don't have many sensors for detecting objects currently. I'm trying to keep my expenses down while building this coasterbot. I created a design for a 'touch' sensor that will tell the robot when it's run into something. It's pretty much the same idea as the touch sensors in the Lego Mindstorm kits:
I'm thinking that the bendable parts will be made out of thin strips of CDs since they should bend and spring back easily enough when it hits something. The contacts I'll probably use foil of some kind, or maybe a small washer. I plan on drilling a hole through the CD strip and running a wire along the outside for input into the arduino.
@Nevyn: Cool! I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with, this sounds like a fun plan. There's only one concern I have- what happens if something runs into the blind spot in the center of the bot?