Daddio Robotics

I finally mechanized our Bob Duallie jogging stroller (won’t the girls be happy!) I needed a new chassis for an autonomous robot. One that could handle a larger payload. After adding motors to the Bob I needed a way to test them, so I added some distance sensors and wrote the software to allow the Bob to follow in front as you walk.

The bags in the front are ballast to keep the front from popping wheelies when I drive it up hills. There is a kill tether (that I am not holding on to.)

The laptop is being used to display motor performance, it is communicating via wireless zigbee to the stroller.

Presently the brains are made up of an Arduino Fio 3.3v connected via i2c to an Arduino Pro Mini 5v 16mhz – that handles the sensor data. It transmits motor control via serial to a Sabertooth 2×25 motor controller. The 2 motor’s are 100 Watt 24V Scooter motors. It is powered by 2 12V 7Ah Lead Acid Batteries. The Fio has it’s own 3.7 V 2000 mAh Lipo battery. The Pro Mini uses a 5v line from the motor controller. The chain it use are #25 as well as the sprockets to drive the wheels.

Web camera motion capture laser turret. Targets and paints the EL Wire butterfly very nicely. The butterfly I made using Electroluminescent Wire sewn onto an ornamental butterfly with fishing line.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroluminescent_wire

Laser Turret is a prototype robot I slopped together. I have been using it to learn how to program and understand wireless communication. It is built from a set of Surgical clamps, velcro, breadboards, plumbers tape, servo’s, ATMega328p and the laser torn out of a laser pointer.

Processing & Arduino code from Bob Rudolph’s Sentry Gun Turret. Thumbs up to him and his very nice code. The servo targeting via serial communication works great via Zigbee Wireless.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Autonomous-Paintball-Sentry-Gun/

This is my first robot. It uses a development board created by my new friend Mike. It is made of wood, Velcro and screws. It has 2 servo’s for drive motors, and a bump sensor to stop. It uses a Ultrasonic sensor to sense distance. It has a motion detector tied into the loop so you can put it in sentry mode. It is programmed in AVR Studio 4, and the program is written in C.