More Roombotics
Another weekend passed and another few days of time well spent doing anything other than what I really need to be doing three weeks before I go on my big hol ... oh well ... robots are cool so it's all good right?
So I was happy when my robot muscles and robot brain arrived in the post last week ... and yesterday I set to work with the sole purpose of stripping one of my Roomba's and interfacing with it ...
Here are a few pics of how it all came together:
There's the Meccano arm slightly re-designed to accomodate the servos. The arm is on a Meccano base that is fixed to the Roomba underneath. It clears the floor by about 1cm and provides a tray area for the little breadboards and the Arduino - which is the new brain :-)
Can you see the thick purple wire? Well, that one connects the Arduino to the Roomba's ROI port so I can gain access to all the motors and sensors also power for the Arduino via the ROI. This afternoon I've been sending various test programs to the brain to try and get a handle on communication through the ROI. Also wrote some code that controls the movement of the arm - although there's no fancy AI or any kinematics going on yet ....
Sadly, my last attempt at flashing a new program into the brain caused some kind of hemotoma which led to severe neural damage leaving the poor thing doomed to repeat some buggy test code forever... It sux - the Arduino seems to run the current program fine - but won't let me upload anything new ... think I fried the ATMEGA168 ... I don't seem to be alone as there's lots of posts about this happening online ... As they are only cheap I will have to get a new chip for the Arduino before I can make a video of my robot doing something clever - definately won't be before I go on my hols as I have so much proper work to be getting done before I leave ... Grrrrrr :-(
So I was happy when my robot muscles and robot brain arrived in the post last week ... and yesterday I set to work with the sole purpose of stripping one of my Roomba's and interfacing with it ...
Here are a few pics of how it all came together:
There's the Meccano arm slightly re-designed to accomodate the servos. The arm is on a Meccano base that is fixed to the Roomba underneath. It clears the floor by about 1cm and provides a tray area for the little breadboards and the Arduino - which is the new brain :-)
Can you see the thick purple wire? Well, that one connects the Arduino to the Roomba's ROI port so I can gain access to all the motors and sensors also power for the Arduino via the ROI. This afternoon I've been sending various test programs to the brain to try and get a handle on communication through the ROI. Also wrote some code that controls the movement of the arm - although there's no fancy AI or any kinematics going on yet ....
Sadly, my last attempt at flashing a new program into the brain caused some kind of hemotoma which led to severe neural damage leaving the poor thing doomed to repeat some buggy test code forever... It sux - the Arduino seems to run the current program fine - but won't let me upload anything new ... think I fried the ATMEGA168 ... I don't seem to be alone as there's lots of posts about this happening online ... As they are only cheap I will have to get a new chip for the Arduino before I can make a video of my robot doing something clever - definately won't be before I go on my hols as I have so much proper work to be getting done before I leave ... Grrrrrr :-(
(Anonymous)
nerdy but good
we both agreed that you are nerdy but good.
lisa xx