Chives Reloaded - My New and Improved Butler Robot

I am going to redo Chives , my butler robot and I am going to extensively document the building process.

I'm gonna take him apart and build him up in a new design.

The old chives looked like this


It boasted voice commands, remote web control , web cam used in image processing , arm to pour a drink ( not pictured since its already taken apart for the new design), and manual drive with a joystick. Oh yeah , and a minifridge that kept drinks cool .

The new Chives will be 100 times better . I'm planning for HUGE advancements, I'm talking about more sonar sensors, three microphones to track direction of sound, better robotic arm for pouring , cooler design, and anything else that you guys suggest that is feasible. all of this in addition to the old features.

Here is the basic design for Chives :

It will follow that design , and that after I have that basic design all finished I will attach my robot arm , some sensors, etc. So when its done it will resemble that CAD .

So far I've finished improving the chassis , making it more secure. Now I'm waiting for some pieces of wood and plexiglas to close up the batteries and relay system ( which I made). Hopefully I'll be done by the end of the week with the chassis.



The album is located here
http://s273.photobucket.com/albums/jj202/erobot/Chives%20Reloaded/Chassis/

This will be the official forum thread for improvements to Chives, I'm abandoning any other thread that dealt with this.
My intention is to enter Chives in the instructables robot contest , but I am not sure if I have enough time since I only finish exams a week before the deadline.

Written documentation will be posted next week or the week after.

Feedback is appreciated.

,Eric

I'm Compiling a Book! - The SoR Book of Algorithms

I will be organizing and compiling a new book which will fully explain a ton of algorithms .
The book will be geared towards the robotics beginner and will have sample code in pseudo code, C , and BASIC. Circuit schematics will also be included for each algorithm

The Main Page for the SoR Algorithms Book

If you are interested in submitting an article email me!

I plan to make it into an ebook first and then into a paperback book

L298 Modification for Breadboard

I got an L298 Motor Driver in the mail yesterday and was really disappointed that it looked like this



and not did not come in a DIP package like this






The reason I was disappointed was because the L298 cannot fit directly into a breadboard and was meant to be soldered. My simple solution to that was to bend the pins of the L298 so that its in a DIP package now and can fit in my breadboard.
Heres a picture of it :


And I also made this diagram for the "new" L298 DIP package :
Click the picture for a better view

Electronic Book Combination Lock

I'm sure you have all heard of the trick in movies, where someone goes into a hidden room , which can only be opened by pulling out the correct book from a bookshelf.

I decided to change this movie cliche a bit. I took a sharp IR sensor and mounted on a bookshelf. It measured the distance to any book that was pulled out, and checked to see if that was the "key" book. After getting it to work with one book pulled out. I made it a combination of books. It has to be 7-9-5 in that order, any other books are ignored. It resets after 15 seconds.

Pay attention to the characters on the LCD screen in the video!

Finally Done

I finally finished all the documenting on my robot for the Robocup Junior Rescue Contest !!!

All the docs are over here:
Line Following, Obstacle Avoiding, and Victim Finding , Oh My!



Cheers,
Eric

Instructions for Setting Up PICBASIC PRO, MicroCode Studio, and the U2 Programmer

On the web there is supposed to be everything . Well I was looking for a guide to installing PICBASIC PRO, U2 programmer , and MicroCode Studio, but couldn't find any. Zero. None. Nada.

So here I go and write my own!

I originally posted it in my 3 in 1 robot tutorial here : http://www.societyofrobots.com/member_tutorials/node/84

I used PICBASIC PRO to make the program , but PICBASIC generates an assembly file as well.I will post that assembly code up also. If you know assembly language and do not need PICBASIC, all you need is the programmer. If you don't know assembly then just use PICBASIC PRO.

Now the first thing we need is a microcontroller . We will use the PIC16F616 PDIP microcontroller. PIC is the brand( which is manufactured by Microchip), 16F616 is the part number , and PDIP is the package type. PDIP means it will look like this .

The microcontroller holds the program , which is a list of instructions for the robot . The language that I will use in this tutorial is a language known as PICBASIC PRO. Here is some sample code to blink an LED.

loop:   High 0          ' Turn on LED connected to PORTB.0
       Pause 500       ' Delay for .5 seconds

       Low 0           ' Turn off LED connected to PORTB.0
       Pause 500       ' Delay for .5 seconds

       Goto loop       ' Go back to loop and blink LED forever
       End

The compiler software transfers the basic code into assembly code and then into robot code( called hexadecimal code) . Assembly code of that same program would be over a page long of almost incomprehensible MOVLW , MOVWF , EQU , $128 , and other various commands. From the assembly code , hexadecimal code(the robot code) is created, which is TOTALLY incomprehensible. Here it is , in case you are curious:

0000- 2828 01a3 00a2 30ff 07a2 1c03 07a3 1c03
0008- 2823 3003 00a1 30df 200f 2803 01a1 3ee8
0010- 00a0 09a1 30fc 1c03 2818 07a0 1803 2815
0018- 07a0 0064 0fa1 2815 1820 281e 1ca0 2822
0020- 0000 2822 0008 1383 1303 1283 0064 0008
0028- 1405 1683 1005 1283 3001 00a3 30f4 2002
0030- 1005 1683 1005 1283 3001 00a3 30f4 2002
0038- 2828 0063 2839

The compiler costs $250 dollars retail, but there sometimes are cheaper versions online -- however, those versions are pirated copies , and any free torrent downloads of PICBASIC PRO are also illegal copies . Buy the retail version from here

The following instructions are for installing and setting up MicroCode Studio with PICBASIC PRO and the U2 Programmer. I was surprised not to find any instructions to do this online, so I went ahead and wrote my own. Enjoy!

Now once you have the compiler , you need hardware that can download the robot code onto the microcontroller from the computer. There are many options available for this piece of hardware.

I recommend this U2 Programmer since it can program almost any PIC micro out there

There are other USB programmers out there , as well as Serial Port Programmers for cheaper.

OR you can buy the code preprogrammed on your chip from Microchip Direct . However, if you go with this option , you will not be able to edit or debug the code . If you do this then skip all of the steps below.

For the next steps you should have a microcontroller, the PICBASIC PRO compiler ,and a programmer hardware.

Lets begin:

Install the software that came with the programmer

Follow the instructions provided with PICBASIC PRO to put PICBASIC PRO software on your computer

Download and Install MicroCode Studio - a free program to edit BASIC code

Download and Install MPASM Assembly Compiler

Now open up MicroCode Studio. Click View in the toolbar and then select Compiler and Editor Options.

A pop up box should appear . Make sure the "Compiler" tab is selected and then click the button titled "Find Automatically". It should start searching your computer for the PIC BASIC PRO compiler.

After it has found it , select the tab titled "Assembler ". Click the "Find Automatically" button and wait till it has found the MPASM assembler software.

Now select the Programmer tab .

Click the "Edit" button. A box should pop up. Type in the program name of your programmer software. For the U2 USB programmer it is "meprog.exe" .

Click Next. Now click "Find Automatically" and wait until it finds the software for the programmer.

After it has finished finding the programmer software , click "Next". Then click "Finished".

All done with the options for MicroCode Studio !

Now open up the programmer software in C:/Program Files/meLabs Programmer. Click meprog.exe

Now click the Options tag and make sure only the options in the photo are checked. Uncheck the other options

Click the View tab and then click Configuration from the drop down list.

Change the configuration setting to match the settings in the picture.

Exit out of the programmer . You have finished setting up all the software and hardware!!!

Infrared vs. Ultrasonic - What You Should Know

Over at SocietyofRobots.com , I wrote a tutorial explaining the pros and cons of using infrared and ultrasonic. I compared and contrasted them and wrote a bit of background information on the sensors.
The tutorial is titled Infrared vs. Ultrasonic - What You Should Know

Note: Ultrasonic is basically sonar : Infrared vs. Sonar is a valid title too
Cheers,
Eric