Robotics

RoboBRiX: http://gramlich.net/projects/robobricks/index.html

AI

Radar

• for $25.00 each and $18.00 in small qty. Siemens offers a 2.4 GHz Doppler radar sensor, with antenna built in. (Part number KMY 24) A complete sensor that will determine distance and direction by monitoring 2 sensor outputs with your A/D microcontroller. Up to 15 feet possible,and very small in size.  (1.125"x1.5"x.375" approx.)

Eyes

• Optical ranging
• Cameras@

Movement

• PIC Microcontoller Input / Output Methods for Perminant Magnet Motors
• http://www-personal.engin.umich.edu/~shc/robots.html ...people may mostly let their legs swing as they would on their own, then add a little control and power, yielding a gait with inherently low energetic and control demands. In contrast to rigidly joint-controlled robots, walking robots based on passive-dynamic principles can have human-like efficiency and actuation requirements
• Easy Vision Systems : "Think about this: Would you rather pay for high precision bearings, drive trains, and encoders for each joint in an arm, or pay for two high precision servos for a tiny little eye that will track the end point of the arm?"

Suppliers

• Tower Hobbies
• the Robot Store
• http://www.verinet.com/~dlc/ email: spamdlc@spam@ at verinet.com this guy ROCKS! He has made (and sells but also releases code etc...) for a number of cool little robotic modules including whiskers, IR proximity detect and remote control, Sonar proximity detect, PWM, Servo, compass. Most of these use the little PIC 12C508 controller which costs basically nothing and is tiny. The 4 RC Hobby servos, 2400 baud serial controller is a wonder of magic. Wow!

links about Evolvable hardware in general:

• http://www.dcs.napier.ac.uk/evol/e-hard.htm
• http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/adrianth/EHW_groups.html

Papers on Agent Oriented Methodology using robotic soccer agents

• http://www.wkap.nl/sample.pdf?165946
• http://www.wkap.nl/sample.pdf?183334

Examples:

• http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/brooks/brooks.html
• http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/genghis/
• http://www.isr.com
• http://members.tripod.com/robomaniac_2001/id149.htm Really cheap and simple.
• http://www.alife.co.uk/links/robots/index.html Artificial Life, specializing in robots (a list of links):
• http://www.hornerrobotics.com/ Carpet Sweeper.
• http://www.mindspring.com/~dfansler/lawn.htm lawn grazer
• http://www.hip.atr.co.jp/~degaris/robokoneko/index.html robot kitten .
• PIC Lego Robot Controller

117. It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail and learning to be self-critical?

Also:

• Automated Gardening
• RS-232 / I²C-Adapter & Parallel I/O Module

See also:

• http://www.restena.lu/convict/Jeunes/RoboticsIntro.htm Amazing what you can do with Lego RCX and a few odds and ends...
• http://www.accs.net/users/cefpearson/mobot.htm +
• James Newton refers to " http://mapage.noos.fr/chrismaker/air-muscle.htm Air Muscles from ballon and cable organizer sleeve" +
• http://voronoi.sbp.ri.cmu.edu/papers.english.html#mobile research papers+
• http://elm-chan.org/works/ltc/report.html Tiny Desktop Line Following Robot +
• http://perso.freelug.org/legway/LegWay.html A two wheel balanceing robot made with legos+
• http://www.pololu.com/ Nice kits, gear trains, motors, parts, etc...+
• http://www.bugbotwars.com/kits/index.htm Many sensor and control kits. Low cost. Based on the islands+
• io/sensors.htm Sensors
• http://home.wanadoo.nl/m.m.avos/pathfinder.htm Easy to build line follower.
• http://www.mil.ufl.edu/imdl/
• http://192.195.23.217/robots/brb.html
• http://real.uwaterloo.ca/~robot/
• http://incolor.inetnebr.com/bill_r/robotics.htm
• http://www.rdrop.com/~marvin/
• http://www.mit.edu:8001/courses/6.270/home.html MIT lego robot contests (very advanced in many cases)
• http://home.infi.net/~wtnewton/otherwld/index.html simulating a nervous network on a processor
• http://www.nondot.org/sabre/java/GRAS/index.html GRAS is a simulator for mechanical robots. The GRAS program is written in the Java language for maximum portability and ease of use.
• http://www.oricomtech.com/emerge4.htm

Interested:

THE book for getting started with the PIC uC! 5 stars at Amazon.com Now available from ecomorder.com for $34.95 ($7.50 S&H)

Peter Todd has released source and sample projects for his artwork, including his 3d wireframe cube renderer for the PIC 18f6520 This includes examples of hardware developed with free software tools such as gEDA/gschem/PCB, SDCC, gputils and picp all on Linux. http://petertodd.ca/art/source-code/

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