Using a Cheap RC Toy as Robotics Platform

A lot of hobby robotic builders spend a lot of time on building the motorized platform before they even get to any of the sensors or programming options that can really help to advance the skillset needed for this genre of experimental electronics. I am definitlely one of those builders who has spent way too much time on several past projects with the mechanism of the bot instead of all the fun sensors and programming, so I thought it would be fun to experiment with salvaging an old cheap toy RC tank for it's motorized chassis, and I'm really glad I did as it was quite simple taking it apart and adding in my Arduino Uno that I got from Element 14. After adding some tip122 power transisitors and modifying the stock LED blink program included in the arduino IDE I had an arduino powered bot ready for sensors and higher level programming. The conversion only took about an hour. Check out the video of it scooting around the shop floor and also take a look at the schematic I used for dead simple on/off motor control just to get started. Later on, I'll add a more sophisticated motor controller and sensors as well.

Robotics: "Hexapod Monster" Robot Kit Review

I recently purchased a kit that assembles into a 6 legged walking robot with IR obstacle detection. The Taiwanese manufacturer, CIC, produces the kit for about 25 American dollars. It can be purchased here. This was my first kit bot, and I was very satisfied with what I got for the price. Don't expect a high performance, sophisticated machine like a multi-servo powered walker with this kit. You can expect however a very well produced and complete entry level robot that is very fun to build. This walker
comes with 2, 3V motors and gearboxes, die cut plywood chassis parts, and all the electronics to control the motors and provide simple obstacle detection via an IR LED and sensor. The kit went together very easily and was a lot of fun to build. A few of the mounting holes in the chassis were a bit off position, but that was minor and easily alleviated. Pay very close attention to the electronic parts diagram and schematic when soldering the pre-etched board, because it's very easy to make a mistake. What I like most about this kit is its potential to be hacked and easily improved. I would really like to add my favorite microcontroller, the BS2 to this platform and then add sensors, etc. Higher torque motors would be a cool addition too. In conclusion, I think this would be a great project for someone who is looking to enter the robotics hobby world but doesn't want to spend a lot of money. In my opinion, this is probably the least expensive robotics kit on the market that actually has expansion capabilities. This would also be an excellent kit for learning how to solder. Check out the build pictures and video of this "monster" in action below:

The package

Contents of the kit. Impressive for $25.

The gear boxes. Strong but light steel frame with color coded gears.

Plywood chassis with gear boxes attached

Robotics: Wireless Controlled Arm

This is a follow up to the wireless gripper post. Constructed from pine, spruce, aluminum, 3 HS-55 and 2 Futaba S-33 servos this arm has 4 degrees of freedom and is controlled by a sony IR remote controller. The Basic Stamp 2 processor translates the IR signals and creates programmable pulse lengths to power the servos. After seeing the video below, you'll see that this design could use a lot of refinement, such as a more efficient and functional gripper, more powerful servos and software that includes kinematics. Robotic arms are very challenging, so I looked to other designs to avoid stupid mistakes. The main influence for this project was the lynxmotion Lynx 5 arm . The code for the BS2 was adapted from Parallax's IR Kit . After I clean it up, I'll post the code that runs this arm here in an update.

Robotics: Wireless Gripper

My latest project aims at constructing a simple robotic arm that can be controlled with an infra-red stereo remote control. At this point I have completed the gripper portion of the arm. This gripper is based on the design of Karl Williams from his book insectronics I used a portion of the code from my previous robot, the infra-tank which can be downloaded here. I also used the same micro controller from the infra tank, the parallax basic stamp 2. My next step is to build the base and shoulder portion of the arm. The pictures above would provide enough reference for you to build your own. If you do, please share the results in the comments section.

Robotics: Infra-Tank!

Here is a 47 sec. clip of my latest bot I call Infra-Tank due to the fact that it is controlled with my infrared stereo remote controller. This is a custom design/build, but is based on the parallax boe-bot. The tank tread kit is from tamiya and the aluminum plate chassis is from K&S Engineering. It uses 2 servos modified for continuous rotation, and is guided by the BS2 microcontroller from parallax. You can build your own by using these directions as a rough guide. I would eventually like to attach a web cam or gripper- but the weather is finally starting to get nice here in MN, so I need to get my airplanes ready! Your thoughts and comments are always appreciated.

Robotics: Link Crawler

Here's a bot that I built a while back that I named link crawler due to the wonky linkage. It was a bit low-end, but it actually stomped around like it might of had a purpose. It was controlled by a basic stamp microcontroller from parallaxinc, used 6 servos for motion, and was unfortunately sensor-less for its short lifespan due to the fact that this project was an exploration of walking style robots. There's something about seeing a fabricated object with moving appendages that never ceases to amaze me.