TedLarson.com
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TedLarson.com
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I have been fooling around with the Lego MindStorms kit as a base platform to build some interesting little bots, and test out new ideas. Here are just two of about a dozen little bots I have built with the kit so far. Linie - A simple line following robot. I have spent lots of time fooling around with different line following algorithms, rather than just doing simple edge detection, so if you knock the bot off the line, it does a reasonably good job of trying to find its way back to the line. This little bot really freaked the dog out the first time she saw it. I was concerned the dog might actually pick the bot up and run away with it, so I had to verbally chase her away. Here is some short video footage I caught of it. Bumpy - A simple bumper robot. He bumps around from wall to wall, and works his way down the hall. I have also fooled with him having the light sensor attached so he can do wall following, and use the bumpers to pull himself out of a corner if he gets stuck. The basic kit is quite limited in that you can only have 3 sensors, and 3 drivers. So, you end up spending most of your time just trying to be creative within these limitations. Wayne in the Home Brew Robotics Club, is working on a system called RoboBricks in order to have building blocks to making better bots. With RoboBricks you could toss the Lego RCX as a controller, and replace it with a Parallax Basic Stamp instead. The bricks are easily able to be snapped onto the tops of Legos, so the Lego platform is a great starting point for building RoboBrick bots. |
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(c) 2010 Ted Larson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED |
