Bill Robinson’s Robotics and Animatronics
RULE YOUR WORLD, ONE ROBOT AT A TIME - IF YOU DARE!
The SodaBot:
I developed SodaBot (robot in a soda can) to teach high school and college students about engineering and robotics.
Specs: Nordic Semi-Conductor high speed wireless comms at 921600 bps to a custom Nordic USB dongle to run a Windows app that sees and controls everything; the dongle is used also for downloading JTAG code and FPGA Intel hex files to the sodabot
cp2102 direct usb comms at 921600 bps
3 stepper motor drivers (with 10mm stepper motors), two for motion wheels and one for focus on imager (expandable for high-current stepper motors – 4A at 12 volt – for Tankbot or Coffeebot).
Micro SD writer/reader, FAT32 format.
3-axis accelerometer and 3-axis magnetometer for orientation.
Digital microphone for speech voice (envelope)recognition.
1.3 megapixel imager with FPGA configurable for image DMA to µC memory space.
Dual channel IR distance sensors, front facing; senses objects up to 6 feet away.
Whisker sensors both right and left front for sensing objects; forward and back sensors for finding edges of tabletops.
8052 µP with 32kb Ram, 128kb flash, and 1200clb FPGA (TE512-S32), running at 30Mhz.
Slave MSP for sound Processor (text to speech, text to Morse code, tone generation for playing tunes, preprogrammed for bugle calls), super bright white LED, used for imager and Morse code. 8 channel 10 bit A/D converter and 8 channel servo controller.
Unused port lines are brought out onto an expander board for Monsterbot servo controlled top add-on and also for larger Tankbot and Coffeebot platforms.
Expander board with 32 i/o lines, 8 of which can be used for servos, 8 for 10bit A/D.