MLW

Sounds good about the 4M ARM. Waiting to see it. The ITX'es are powerful, but at 2-3 Amps draw they're out of contention for a small bot. You oughta be able to get some decent brains into a bot without having to go for a 10# SLA battery, etc.

capabilities...

Thanks for the pointers. I'll check them out.

Pete Gray wrote:

I used a little tank toy similar to the one you used with a web cam perched on a 6 inch rod to test out some visually guided navigation ideas.

Only a PC would have been able to handle that :)

The problem with the tank design was instead of the stability I assumed it acted like an inverted pendulum. I had to stop the tank to take an image (slow capture causing blurring) but had to wait for the tank to stop rocking!!

It did only have on/off motor control which I thought was sufficient for such a slow machine. I guess with a PIC I could have nulled out the rocking somehow?

- John

"outraged"... Don't recall "outraged" or even outraged. Not even bugged.

discussions.

I've tried to use some of those drill motors but the ones I've hacked didn't have a unitized gear motor. You almost have to use the drill motor body to keep everything together. I ended up using the planetary gear drive out of those motorized dish cleaner thingies. (They're hard to take apart, though.)

I've had my eye on their 12V electric impact wrench, for an unusual kind of drive system for my next robot. It went on sale the other week but I missed it. I'll have to wait another week or two for the sale to come up around. Supposidly it has something like 150 foot pounds of torque. That's about half of the really high-end electrical or air impact wrenches, but for $10 (sale price) it's worth a shot.

-- Gordon

BTW, I hate you. *NO ONE* should be so fortunate to have this sort of thing available to them. The FDM alone is worth never leaving the office. Why bother going home when such a cool thing at your beck and call. I mean, talk about a Santa Claus machine!

The world is simply not a fair place.

-- Gordon

Lots of code... nice pic. Actually I have a toy OWI robotic arm that appears stronger? I ran it via some homemade Hbridges with positional feedback and a webcam on its elbow. The Lynxmotion ARM appears to bend at the wrist but not rotate? The OWI arm cannot bend its wrist but can rotate.

One thing it did teach me is toy robot arms only have an educational value, they are not practical. The OWI arm is slow even with 6volts and a real arm needs a sense of touch.. try picking up a small block using just the image from the camera.. and force feedback. There were other little things like slop in the joints (or maybe the gears) so the positional data was dependent on the direction the joint was moving.

We use vision to locate an object but the actual manipulating of the object is mainly based on touch and resistive forces.

A *useful* manipulator would have to at least have the strength and speed of a human arm/hand. So a robot is going to have a need a heavy duty batteries. Powering a mother board may be the least of its problems.

I had previously viewed this but code alone isn't very useful unless you know what it is refering to and of course are familar first with the mnemonics and architecture.

Sort of gathered in one place. A bit like a kitchen pantry chock full of items and I just can't find the tomato sauce (ketchup in your lingo ?). And it is all code without context?

It really depends on how it is put together. A ad hoc collection of stuff is better than nothing but there is more to a good teaching text than that.

You don't want information overload. You need a step by step tutorial based on *one* project. That will cover the basics on how to interface to the hardware and how to translate your ideas into code.

Perhaps Pete Gray's article "Robots & Small-C" in Dr. Dobb's Journal October, 2004 is a good example.

Unfortunately I am unable to read the article as I don't subscribe to DDJ magazine so I can't form a personal judgement.

- John

Hyperbole and mock outrage :-)

Aha! My "ears" are burning! I'll have to post now that I've found this message by way of searching the ether using my oegie (weegie, how the heck is that spelled?) board.

I've been out due to searching for work becoming a full time job, day care for a (now) 4 year old, midnight engineering, teaching and general robot and other fun. Whew, I hope it slows down soon!

But, now I'm poised for a comeback!

have fun, DLC

: LMAO

: Yes indeed. Like a crypt. Just wish your cohort Dennis would show his mug : from time to time. : There are many theories floating about as to why things are dead here. I : personally think it is a matter of diffusion. When I had my SWAP site, (site : without a purpose ), there was very little data on robots on the web. USENET : was a good discussion forum and knowledge repository. These days, the : knowledge is not centralized. It is subdivided and decentralized.

: ugh

: Mike

: > > Mr. ( or Mrs. ) MLW has caused quite a stir. I am concerned over many of : his : > > statements, but one in particular lies nestled deep within a thread. In : that : > > thread, the widely published and highly regarded Gordon McComb posted " : In : > > any case, many of us have specifically mentioned using microcontrollers : > > WITH a PC, so it's hard to imagine how you have missed these : discussions. " : > > to which MLW replied " I haven't missed them, I disregard them." : > >

: > > That sums it up right there. MLW is not asking for advice, he is simply : > > grandstanding an opinion. : >

: > [snip] : >

: > On the other hand, you have to admit it HAD been pretty dead around : here... : >

: > -- : > (Replies: cleanse my address of the Mark of the Beast!) : >

: > Teleoperate a roving mobile robot from the web: : >

: > Coauthor with Dennis Clark of "Building Robot Drive Trains". : > Buy several copies today!

For some reason I have the theme to Rocky in my head now!

-- Gordon