Arduino and Code::Blocks Posted at: Sun, Dec 20th, 2009 | 2:41PM UTC By Josh Ashby

Been under the weather the past few days, so it’s been all coding while laying in bed.

First off, I’ve started to mess around with the Open Frameworks and I must say, it is amazing from the little I’ve touched. I’ve managed to make a simple GUI that has 4 buttons laid out in a d-pad style from a game pad. when you click on any circle it will light up, and when the corresponding key on the keyboard (a,s,d,w) is pressed that circle with light up also. Finally, when the circles light up, they write a byte to the serial port. This will probably later on become the new GUI for BOB.

Source Here

Along with this, the newer Arduino IDE’s do not support (or like to even play nice with) my avr iscp so I’ve had to resort to using avrdude, which isn’t bad by it’s self, but having to manually set up the project folders and copy the libraries and all that is a pain. Because I like the Code::Blocks IDE (which is what the Linux version of Open Frameworks uses also) I decided to make a project template for using the Arduino libraries. After many errors:

I finally got help from Reggie on freenode/#sparkfun and was able to get a working project that used the Arduino libraries in Code::Blocks:

I have a github repository for any templates I make for Code::Blocks.

Happy Holidays!

BOB Brochure Posted at: Sat, Oct 3rd, 2009 | 6:26PM UTC By Josh Ashby

Well, finally had some time off of school to get a new updated brochure for BOB, here it is: BOB Handout I hopefully to get some time to work on BOB soon, I got a single board P1 pc from my FIRST coach to mess around with and I hope to get it up and running with a linux system and on BOB.

I also got a logo for the Bouncing Off Bumpers project complete:

Robot Library Posted at: Fri, Aug 7th, 2009 | 1:47PM UTC By Josh Ashby

Well, I finally got around to writing my first library for C. The library’s for the arduino IDE, and it has the basic stuff to drive my robot around, go forward, go backward, stop, turn left, and turn right. You can find the code here: http://tinyurl.com/kmqem5 and BOB’s github repo. here: http://github.com/JoshAshby/Robotbob/tree/master.

Read more…

I2C Posted at: Tue, Jul 28th, 2009 | 1:41AM UTC By Josh Ashby

It’s the middle of the night and I just got my arduino i2c code to work, been working on it all day. All it does is the master reads the usb, then sends that data over the i2c bus, and the slave reads the data and if it is an ‘A’ then it lights up a led till more data comes through the lines. Enjoy: http://github.com/JoshAshby/i2c/tree/master

BOBv2 is finished Posted at: Mon, Jul 13th, 2009 | 6:57PM UTC By Josh Ashby

I finally got around to finishing BOB’s version 2 board, and the motor controllers, I’ll have a schematic of his whole board up after I make one, and I’ll see about making a video of him running soon. So heres what’s new on his board:

1. Thermal cut off: when the temp gets too high, as monitored by a thermistor, an op-amp (741) will trigger a transistor that the motor controllers data flows through, cutting off data to the mosfets and hopefully stopping him.
2. Improved mosfet control: the mosfets are being driven at the 10-12v range now, instead of the 5v on ver. 1, this means the mosfets (irf540N) will open more and allow more amps to flow to the motor and less heat be generated on the mosfets.
3. Flyback diode: i’ve added a flyback diode to each of the motor controllers to help with spikes from turning on and off the motor.

Read more…

First look at B.O.B. (Bouncing Off Bumpers) Posted at: Wed, Mar 25th, 2009 | 12:20PM UTC By Josh Ashby

Well, here’s the first look at what B.O.B.*’s frame looks like. It’s is made out of welded steel cubic tubing, and has two soft rubber crazy wheels in the front, and a red soft rubber stationary wheel in the back.

Steering:

The steering rods are just 1 inch wide steel plating that is welded to the crazy wheels. Steering is controlled by a motor taken from a Black and Decker screwdriver.

Drive:

The drive consists of a motor taken (with the gear box and chuck) from an old Ryobi drill, the drill motor is mounted on more welded 1 inch wide steel plating. Attached to the drill via a very nice, turned down shaft from my neighbor is a belt pulley. The belt that is on this pulley attaches to the back red soft rubber wheel via a larger belt pulley.

The small wood block that has the center of it cut out is the battery holder. the battery is an Everlast Motorcycle lead acid battery.

The control system will hopefully consist of two Atmega168′s linked together in an I2C network (if I have time to get this working) or via an on board computer. The first Atmega will control the sensors and collect data. The second one will control the two motor controllers, I still have no idea how I’m going to get this thing to drive it’s self around a building without crashing.

Best of luck to anyone in this competition. for more information on what the Sparkfun autonomous competition is, visit the page: http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9016

Also, feel free to share your robot project with everyone in the comments or send me a link to the robot’s build page at joshuaashby@joshashby.com

* – B.O.B. stands for Bouncing Off Bumpers