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Rodney Video Motion tracking and arm movements
Rodney Video For anyone who's sufficiently bored, here's a video of the Rodney robot (2.7MB). It gives a much better idea of how the robot moves than just static images of it. - Bob http://www.fuzzgun.btinternet.co.uk/rodney/RodneyPoint.mpg | motters 136 posts. Saturday 12 January, 07:31 Reply
Coool! Now that is very impressive. It seems so much more than just algorithms when you see Rodney perform tricks ;) Rodney's flying circus! I didn't realise he was that size... I somehow pictured a big beast :P | Alex J. Champandard 935 posts. Saturday 19 January, 08:04 Reply
New pics Rodney is quite small. About the same height as the mini-tower PC that he stands next to. The small size allows me to use ordinary R/C servos and still maintain a reasonable amount of power. I've updated the Rodney web page with some nice colour pics showing the hands that I'm currently working on for the robot. - Bob http://www.fuzzgun.btinternet.co.uk/rodney/rodney.htm | motters 136 posts. Sunday 20 January, 15:39 Reply
Bob the Builder Bob strikes again! The picture on the main page is great... it gets across the scale of the robot really well. Which kinda makes me realise how much hassle it all was! Is it difficult building a robot that small? Easier than a big one? What exactly did you start with as a base? | Alex J. Champandard 935 posts. Monday 21 January, 08:41 Reply
All robots great and small It would be harder to build a larger cog-sized robot, mainly due to the larger servo motors which would be needed. Generally the bigger the motor the more expensive it is and the lower its power/weight ratio. Rodney's small size means that I can use standard R/C servos which range in price from £16 for the very small servos to around £35 for the shoulder motors with increased torque rating. Larger servos would cost much more and be harder to acquire. Rodney's main torso is simply a box constructed from aluminium right angles and strips. I've added a shelf inside the box on which the control electronics sits. The front is aluminium sheeting available from model shops. Almost all the bolts used are 5mm diam. Also, there is no glue in the robot at all - he's entirely bolted together. Avoiding glue makes it easy to assemble/disassemble the robot in order to repair, replace or modify components. - Bob | motters 136 posts. Monday 21 January, 13:57 Reply
Control Electronics So the control electronics is connected to your PC via the USB, it does all the processing and sends the actions back to the circuit board? Did you have to make that yourself too!?! | Alex J. Champandard 935 posts. Tuesday 22 January, 10:06 Reply
Servo controllers I've updated Rodney's page with some information on the controller electronics. These are miniSSC controllers bought from www.robotstore.com, and not made by me. They communicate with the PC via COM1 or COM2 ports at 9600 baud. - Bob http://www.fuzzgun.btinternet.co.uk/rodney/rodney.htm | motters 136 posts. Tuesday 22 January, 15:32 Reply
PICXXYXX Hello, Interesting board! He use a PIC16C621. But, for poeple dont have the money or wish to do everything by themself, then, there is many projects avaible on the web with the shemas of the board that do the same thing ( with microchip 16f84 or motorola HC11, etc ). The price will be lesser ( about 15$ for the hole thing with connectors and microprocessor ). Controling the paralel port is really easy but the serial port ( like this board ) is a bit harder and need a bit more time of coding. So, you do a good job with Rodney motters, felecitations! Salutations, Fred | Frédérick Giasson 16 posts. Tuesday 22 January, 17:44 Reply