Robot-related Goals#

What are your goals?#

Here are some of the possible goals related to robot design, hardware, software and research:

• Some possible robot challenges, features, tasks:
  • autonomous navigation (controlled environment, indoor, outdoor?)
  • telerobotics
  • camera-as-sensor
  • Machine Learning
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • obstacle avoidance
  • line following
  • maze solving
  • Sumo robot competition
• Try out various sensors and modules from Adafruit, Pimoroni, Pollolu, PiBorg, PiJuice, etc.:
  • Time of Flight (ToF) laser distance sensors
  • infrared sensors (various distance ranges)
  • ultrasonic sensors via PiBorg's Ultraborg module
  • install Hall-effect[4] motor encoders and write a Python-based PID motor controller
  • analog-to-digital converters
  • motion detector, to detect humans and cats
  • a robot front bumper, modeled after David Anderson's SR04 robot[3]
  • motor control via PiBorg's Thunderborg module
  • Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) and battery management via PiJuice
• Try out several robotic hardware platforms, for a low-cost, entry-level robot
  • OSEPP Tank
  • Adafruit CRICKIT for Circuit Playground Express
  • Adafruit:
    • Purple Aluminum Chassis for TT Motors - 2WD
    • Mini Robot Rover Chassis Kit - 2WD with DC Motors
    • Mini Round Robot Chassis Kit - 2WD with DC Motors
    • Mini 3-Layer Round Robot Chassis Kit - 2WD with DC Motors
• Motors
  • OSEPP 25mm motors (part of the Tank kit), with encoders
  • smaller and larger motors from Pololu, ServoCity, GoBilda, etc.
  • yellow plastic motors
  • continual-rotation micro servos
  • N20, AKA Pololu micro metal gearmotors (many gear ratios available, with or without optical or Hall Effect encoders; available from Pimoroni, Adafruit and others)
• Try out several microprocessor/microcontroller platforms, for a low-cost, entry-level robot
  • Raspberry Pi (Zero, Zero W)
  • Circuit Playground Express
  • Arduino
  • other microcontrollers, e.g., Adafruit ItsyBitsy M4 Express
  • Espruino WiFi (Javascript-based microcontroller)
  • MicroBit
• GPIO information
  • pinouts for each Raspberry Pi
• Explore use of I2C bus
  • how to display current I2C devices
  • list of known I2C devices by address (noting potential conflicts)

What Do You Bring to the Project?#

It's good to consider what a robot designer and builder brings to the table:

• existing hardware and/or software skills
• what skills you want to learn?
• what tools do you currently have? what tools are you willing to purchase?
• are you focused on hardware, software, or both?
• what programming language do you prefer to use for a robot?
• what type of robot do you want to build?
• what scale of robot do you want to build? The bigger the robot the larger the motors, battery, cost, etc.
• what is your projected budget, at least initially?