My Babies

Robot Number Two*, Quadruped

jpeg of the four legged robot Summer of 1993-Spring 1995

Robot Number Three, Biped

 gif of 2 leg robotSummer 1995-Spring 1996
While building the biped, I wrote some Assembly routines for HC11 that will run servos full range and full accuracy. Up to 5 servos with no additional hardware (about 40 use up all the processing time, if the external circuitry were there to demux/latch).
Starting in the summer of 1996 I started work on software that I thought would find it's way into a new robot with two arms and a video camera. Along the way I figured out some nifty things about Computer Vision and expanded that to fill a science fair project.

Mobot 1, 1998

Spring 1998

With a mere 4 IR pairs, its was to follow the little white line, and it did it fine the day before competition.

Mobot 2, 1999

Moving up to 6 IR pairs with individually controllable emmitters I found that the tolerance of some of the parts varied too much for me to simply compare the values measured. Unfortunately I figured this out too late. And the other failure was in the steering motor I had attached to this RC car based robot- I didn't attach it well enough and the slop at up half of my steering range. I didn't get any good pictures of it but since it will also be Mobot 3, you'll see it later.

Mobot 3, 2000

Failed due to sensing problems. I put a lot of work into getting the right sort of OpAmp circuit to improve the .05 volt difference my sensors saw between line and no line when they were near saturated by the sun. To no avail. Next year, vision, definately. Got good pictures though.


Lt.Cmd. DataEventually, I'll build one of these.
I have a small collection of Mac HC11 Tools(270k). Includes assembler, emulator and downloader. Everything I ever bother to use. SEE ALSO: CodeWarrior Plugin Assembler for HC11.
A small collection of robotics links.
Hit me: , since July 18, 1998.
Questions? email me.

For an interesting angle on survivable robots, check out BEAM Robotics.

Also check out the perpetually cool CMU Robotics Institute.

See also Brian's Artificial Life endeavors.

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