Robos

[eddie]

I am not an engineer, or anything of the like, but we are working on our third linux robot. The first two were p1's (known as kitt and robocop). Everything we have done has been with off the shelf parts and or junk from scratch. The latest project will probably work on a mini-itx atom based mb. Just in the planning stages. My brother (a cs prof) wants me to give a demo of the web based home automation and the robots for the college where he works. I will try to have a video of that if it happens then upload it to youtube.

[dann]

wow, that is awesome, I look forward to seeing the video. You guys put together a web page or something on how you did all this?

[eddie]

Thanx for the kind words. Do not have a site, may start a wordpress blog for the pics. How to do it? Research (be willing to learn new things), a bit of intuition, know how to program, have access to a real electronics store, and own a big pile old computer parts and other surplus stuff (or be able to scrounge it).

Update:
http://www.linuxpcrobot.org/
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9103
http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/Linu ... nce-Guide/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19RBuwWjJJU
http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News ... nux-robot/

My favorite resources:
book: "Robot Builders Bonanza"
Website: epanorama.net (though not about robots, I used and modified circuits from there as we needed.
Between the two of those, you should have 90% of what you need.
Wayback machine (www.archive.org) for some lost sites also a big help.

Base os: ubuntu and debian
Development language: Freebasic (python did not cut the mustard.)
Stepper motor, servo, and control electronics software routines were from the web were lacking, so we wrote all our own.

Thanx to TI, Maxim, and a few other companies for supplying various free parts.
Thanx to all the people who donated old computer junk (i.e. 5 1/4" disk drives and printers that we salvaged the stepper motors from) that was used in this project.

[eddie]

Started a Wordpress blog (carboman.wordpress.com) on how the robots were made. It will take a while to get everything documented. It is not a 5 minute project to build this thing much less document it. So many man hours, but I could build one in a fraction of the time now.


If you are in a hurry:

http://oap.sourceforge.net/index.php