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Getting started in robotics What are the options to get started?
Getting started in robotics I've been looking into robotics for a while now, but I have been unable to really find what I'm looking for. The problem is, I'm good with my hands, and I consider myself proficient in programming, but I lack the skills when it comes to electronics. Give me a PCB, the components, and the circuit and I can assemble it (Done that a few times), but I don't really know how to design my own solutions or how the circuits I built work. I built the Stiquito (A nitinol driven, six-legged bug) which turned out pretty well. It's just frustrating to fiddle around with two switches to make it walk. What is a good way around this? I would really like to get a package that looks like this: - Interface card for the PC. - Good software API that I can access with C++. - As much as possible "plug-n-play" on the hardware side so it's relatively easy to hook up another motor/servo/sensor/whatever. Is there anything out there that offers this? Thanks, Jeroen | jeroen 28 posts. Thursday 06 December, 18:23 Reply
Getting started There are various off-the-shelf kits and pre-assembled components that you can use for robotics projects. For small fun robots similar to stiquito there are the Lego mindstorms kits and also Dave Hockeyrink's www.solarbotics.com site. I think the Lego robots are controllable from a PC to a limited extent, but the BEAM robots are purely analogue electronics and don't use any microprocessors at all. For more advanced projects I would recommend the mondotronics site www.robotstore.com. Here there are various bits that can be used for robot building. For servo control on my stereo vision robot I used the miniSSC board from this site. The miniSSC is pre-assembled (no soldering needed on the board) and can be easily connected to a PC (you have to make your own interface cable, but it's a very easy two wire connection, which I made by splicing a null modem and telephone cable together). From a software point of view the miniSSC is pretty trivial, and simply involves sending a couple of bytes per axis to one of the COM ports. There is also a more advanced type of servo controller on that site which gives better speed control and other functions. - Bob | motters 136 posts. Friday 07 December, 02:41 Reply
Good info I want to stay away from Mindstorms, because of the limited control options. Which is too bad actually, since I did a LOT with Lego as a kid and I have a large collection stashed away somewhere. I think I want to start with tethered bots, since keeping the brains in the PC will give me more flexibility and allows for more powerful control software. Eventually, I would also like to experiment with robot-vision, which I guess can be done using a web-cam. The robotstore site seems to have an interesting collection! Thanks, Jeroen | jeroen 28 posts. Friday 07 December, 12:38 Reply
Khepera and Lego In the Mobile Robots group here, quite a few people are doing work with Kheperas. They're very small things, but they have way enough capabilities to keep you occupied for ages! http://www.k-team.com/robots/khepera/khepera.html The base is quite expensive for a hobbyist, and so are the various tools you use on top of that. You can get arms, and cameras and other cool sensor devices. The great thing is they plug into the back of your computer, so you can download programs to them directly. Also, despite being a toy I think Lego is a very good option too. You can combine the actual lego with specialised circuits and motors, so you've got a very flexible base to build on. There's a course on robotics running every term here, and they have 'rugby' competitions with the lego robots... it's damn impressive what they can do with them. I think I might just have to join in next term! I'll try to find out how our robots in the labs are equipt, and let you know. Keep in mind that keeping the control software on the PC will limit the mobility of your robot, with the wires and all. Embeded solutions are good for that reason. | Alex J. Champandard 934 posts. Saturday 08 December, 09:42 Reply
Khepera The Kheperea robots are quite good, and have been used for years by academic research departments and also for robot football competitions. They are pretty expensive though, and their very small size limits the types of addons that you can put on them (you would never be able to put stereo USB cameras onto one!). There is also always a dilemma between deciding whether to have all the electronics onboard the robot or have it permanently tethered to a PC of some sort. Years ago when I first started to experiment with robots I wanted them to be completely self-contained units, but this approach can be expensive to construct and maintain. There are many types of embedded PC that you can buy now (you could even use old PDAs) but its all propietory technology and is usually expensive to replace if the robot bumps into something (as they often do). I found that once hard disks had failed of processors blown the parts were difficult to attain at reasonable cost. For the Rodney robot I've gone for a device which is completely desk-bound and tethered to a desktop PC. Although this is limiting to some degree it does give the flexibility that when faster processors or better cameras become available it's all standard off-the-shelf PC technology and can be replaced easily at minimal cost. The ideal solution is probably to prototype the robot as a tethered device initially, then when the project is near completion put everything onto a small embedded PC board. - Bob | motters 136 posts. Saturday 08 December, 10:05 Reply
Lego etc. I absolutely agree LEGO is a good and flexible basis to build robots on. I was talking specifically about Lego Mindstorms though. Although very interesting, the system as I understand it is rather limited in its control capabilities. As far as thethering is concerned, it would be ideal if there is a solution that allows robot control using a standard Ethernet connection. It's flexible to program and, more interestingly, you can untether the robot easily by using a BlueTooth or 805.11 network card. Still, although this might change in the future, I am really less interested in making fully mobile robots. A (almost) stationary robot is fine, as long as I can use the power/resources and flexibility of a full PC to experiment on it. Jeroen | jeroen 28 posts. Sunday 09 December, 01:13 Reply