Robotics 101 and the Wiimote experience
I’ve never done anything bot-related and just couldn’t let it stay that way. A couple of friends and I (Hi there Miguel and Gonzalo!) have put together this simple bot and will be playing with it to discover the wonders of the Wiimote shortly.
It uses a Skypic board as brains and a Sky293 board for power, both of which are free hardware licensed under Creative Commons. Besides that it has some cheap sensors, the simplest skeleton ever, a couple of Futaba servos and a Wiimote (yet to be incorporated) as inexpensive do_it_all sensor. It’s not that a Wii Remote is cheap. Compare what it has to offer (accelerometer, optical sensor, Bluetooth connectivity) to the price of any single raw component from that list and you’ve got yourself the best deal ever!! And yes… if you own a Wii you can play with it too as a bonus. Thanks to Andres Prieto-Moreno (Hi, Teach!) for pointing out the possibilities of this little wonder.
Here… take a look.
It isn’t fancy and does nearly nothing for now. The big wheels are just some CDs held together with balloons and rubber bands. You can have a closer look at the Skypic board in the upper view. In the bottom view you can see the servos, IR sensors, bumpers and the battery pack.
You can find all the information on these boards and a lot of other technical stuff on robotics at IEA robotics. Everything is in Spanish, though.
This week we’ll be adding the Wiimote and start with the real programming. The fun part is almost there. I can feel it ;-)
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I am very grateful for this blog post. I can only say that will be the best robot ever seen although the group has a clumsy. Sorry for my bad English.
Thinking about the Wiimote, we could give it several uses:
1) as mobile sensor to relay every bit of information to the computer.
2) as a controller, using its gyroscopic sensors to control the bot *AND* the integrated IR receptor to follow the position of an IR led installed in the robot.
The first thing would be fun and easy. The second would be a lot more interesting if we could isolate the movement of the hand and calculate an accurate movement of the bot (taking the controller’s deviations into account). An just with one Wii-Remote. With two Wiimotes everything would be a no-brainer. But where’s the fun in that? :)
What do you think? Material for a new post for sure :)
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