Valentino Braitenberg is an Italian-Austrian neuroscientist. In his book, entitled “Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology”, he performs thought experiments creating vehicles which, while simple in nature, exhibit complex behaviors such as fear, love, aggression and optimism. His vehicles are simple, with the simplest consisting of a single sensor and single motor. This simplicity makes it easy for someone to construct one of his vehicles. While Braitenberg like behaviors can be programmed into any robot with the proper sensors and actuators it is a more interesting challenge to construct a Braitenberg vehicle in hardware, as described in his thought experiments.
Due to the interesting nature of Braitenberg’s vehicles, the CMU Robotics Institute has provided funding to a project to create Braitenberg-esque vehicles that would then go on display in the Robotics Institute. I’m acting as co-project leader, coordinating with a graduate student in the Machine Learning program who obtained the funding for the project. I’m hoping the project will produce 5 to 6 artistic Braitenberg inspired creations. I’ve spent some time thinking about possible things I could create and I’m excited to see what ideas other people come up with after I present the project at the Robotics Club’s general body meeting.
More to come on Braitenberg in the coming weeks as projects get started.
During Build 18 I managed to slap together a simply chassis for our micro colony robots. It was super simple, made of some plastic and hot glue, but, it was able to hold everything on it.
Here are some pictures:
As you can see it isn’t very big, not much larger than my cell phone. I used 3 4-40 machine screws which let us slide the sensor board into place and tuck all of the electronics underneath. I really like the 4-40 screws for stacking feature and it is something I would like to retain for the next revision of our chassis.
The next revision will also have a mount for the servos, instead of them just being tacked in place with hot glue. It was a quick and dirty build, but, it got the job done.
Building robots is expensive. Motors $20, controller $20, motor driver $20, sensors $10, battery $10. Just the basic components and you’re already up to $80. The costs add up fast and it’s hard to pour a lot of money into building a lot of robots. That’s one reason why it’s great to have a resource like the Robotics Club. If I wanted, I could walk in and build a complete robot with parts that are already there. All I would have to invest is time, no money (well, a $25 membership fee, but that’s beside point).
Because building robots is expensive, for now I’m going to be focusing on projects that don’t require funding or that I have funding for already. I’m going to focus on Mobot (which I have almost all of the parts for), Micro-Colony (which I’m getting funded through the Build18 project), StairBot (a robotics club project I’m the head of, I’ll keep updated on its status as I work on it), and some other projects that I have in mind.
Unfortunately, I’m pushing Desk Rover to the side for the time being. Mainly because my robot fund is a little short of the price tag of desk rover, and I have plenty of other robots to work on in the meantime. I will build the first stage (chassis, sensors, motors, etc. no LCD or wireless) once I have enough money.
I will continue to work on the FWR3 Jasper. Most of the work in it is design work as of now, and that doesn’t cost anything but time (which, I now have a lot of as I’m on break).
Today I found out that CMU’s RoboClub’s Colony robots have encoders which could be used for the Jasper platform. The colony robots use the same motors and wheels that Jasper will use. The encoders are magnetic (not optical). This will save me a lot of development.
I still need to do a lot of development with the board. But, the robotics club might have PCB fab supplies which would speed things up greatly. I need to talk to some club members to see what we have.
Over the past few days I’ve been thinking about completely redesigning the Fun With Robots platform. New chassis, new board, everything. I’m going to redesign it to make it more versatile. Giving it more features and greater capabilities.
I’m calling this new platform “Jasper” and designing it around the old platform plus an additional feature set. Jasper will have similar features and functionality to the FWR 2 platform, which is based on the Firefly board. In addition to those base features, the Jasper platform will have expandable capabilities. It will be able to use add-on boards similar to the Arduino Shields. The first big add-on I’m looking to add is optional encoders and then maybe wireless and LCD add-ons.
After that the possibilities are endless. I would also like to rework the curriculum some and maybe market it to other colleges and maybe even highschools. All in all it will be nice to get a new platform out, and it would be great if we could get other institutions to use it. Expect to hear more about it in the near future.
I’ve come up with a parts list for version 1 of my Desk Rover:
- Control
- Arduino Nano USB Microcontroller v3
- Quantity: 1
- Cost: 35
- Total: 35
- Source: http://www.robotshop.us/arduino-nan-v-3.html
- Pololu Qik 2s9v1 Dual Serial Motor Controller
- 1
- 25
- 25
- http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/1110
- Sensing
- QTR-1A Reflectance Sensor
- Quantity: 4
- Cost: 3.5
- Total: 14
- Source: http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/958
- Sharp GP2D120 IR Range Sensor
- Quantity: 2
- Cost: 14
- Total: 28
- Source: http://www.robotshop.us/sharp-gp2d120-ir-range-sensor-1.html
- Microswitch – 2 Terminal
- Quantity: 2
- Cost: 1.5
- Total: 3
- Source: http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9414
- Wireless
- XBee 1mW Chip Antenna
- Quantity: 1
- Cost: 23
- Total: 23
- Source: http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8664
- XBee Explorer Regulated
- Quantity: 1
- Cost: 10
- Total: 10
- Source: http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9132
- LCD
- Serial Enabled 16×2 LCD – White on Black 5V
- Quantity: 1
- Cost: 20
- Total: 20
- Source: http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=813
- Motion
- 150:1 Micro Metal Gear Motor
- Quantity: 2
- Cost: 16
- Total: 32
- Source: http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/1097
- Pololu 42x19mm Wheel and Encoder Set
- Quantity: 1
- Cost: 40
- Total: 40
- Source: http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/1218
- Grand Total: 230
I will be building DR1 in phases. In the first phase I will build the motion and sensing and control parts. Once I have them working I will add the LCD and wireless capabilities. Right now I have 4 unused I/O pins on the arduino (2 digital, 2 analog), so I have some room for expansion. I may add a camera in the future.
I’ve been thinking about building a small robot that would be able to navigate around on the top of a desktop (hence the name Desk Rover). This robot would be approximately 3in x 3in x 3in. The robot is going to be used to do a lot of things I’ve never done before. Such as wireless and using an LCD. Additionally, I’ve never designed a robot just for me before, and it’s something I would like to do. I would like the design to be fairly versatile in terms of sensors and capabilities. I might also build a few of them to have them work together, or just upgrade the design as I move from one iteration to the next.
The features of the first Desk Rover include cliff sensors, range finders, LCD, wireless communication (via Xbee) as well as possibly encoders on the wheels. I plan on controlling Desk Rover with an Arduino Nano and eventually I may design my own boards to make the design more compact.
Here some sketchhes of the proposed layout of Desk Rover, in theses sketches I was thinking about using the GM 6, but I may end up using micro-metal gear motors from Pololu instead. I have a few configuration options which I may explore as the design progresses through iterations.
Sketches:
[nggallery id=3]
