Robots

First off, check out the bit about PiWars to see what's been occurring of late as this has taken up a lot of time and development. New designs are underway and are on the left somewhere

So I was writing my bit about solar power and needed to build a solar tracking mount to generate real world figures when I found the cheapest way to do it was buy an off the shelf robot kit....and then another...!!!

The intention is still to use it for solar tracking but I got a whole range of bits and before they get separated and modified I thought I should at least assemble them as initially intended and experiment.

The first kit I bought was a small robot arm made from laser cut wood and four servos. This was mostly ideal as it would allow me to mount a small panel and position it where I wanted.

The second kit I bought was a small two wheeled car, which included an Arduino Uno, a servo board, stepper motor driver, motors wheels other hardware, and a tilting and rotating camera mount worth half what I paid for the whole kit. Mmmm, I'll have another those!!

So this is now a brief write-up on two robots I didn't intend to start and a whole load of other things........

The two original kits are:

SNAM1500 WOOD 4dof robot arm sg90

Smart Car Smart Robot Car Chassis Kit Tracking Motor 2WD Ultrasonic

The menu on the left lists off the different projects but a brief description of each follows.

Robot Arms details some of the ideas tried and developed starting with a basic cheap wooden kit. 

Robot Cars looks at how the basic robot car kits I bought developed and still work well

LoCost Robot details how a basic cheap line following kit was developed to do a lot more

LoCost Robot Ideas takes the original idea, and develops it into a variety of other projects

The Robot Warehouse is a a demonstration idea to build an arena simulating a warehouse

The Insect Robot is just a different take on robot form and propulsion. 

The Penguin, and off the shelf walking robot

Four Wheel Drive are robot chassis to demonstrate different propulsion methods