AW: [Metalab] Robotics

[Ralf Schlatterbeck]

On Thu, Feb 22, 2007 at 11:07:19AM +0100, Marius Kintel wrote:
> 
> >Have you looked into sensors/actuators the device comes with and what
> >you can add? It doesn't look very hackable to me concerning the  
> >hardware
> >but I may be wrong... I'd like to use a robot to be able to do the
> >robotchallenge courses, so I'd need some sensors to navigate on a line
> >and get around obstacles etc...
> >
> They say that it ships with 30 sensors, although I cannot easily find  
> a specification detailing these.
> Regarding hackable hardware - this might be a valid point; the iRobot  
> Create is "just" an automatic vacuum cleaner without a vacuum  
> cleaner, so it's definitely not designed for expansion.
> 
> Navigation on a line: They have some "cliff sensors" (IR sensors),  
> which might be able to distinguish between light & dark floor. I'm  
> not familiar with the rules of robotchallenge though..
Details: http://www.robotchallenge.at/reglement/
(I've only watched last year and will probably this year, haven't done
any robot projects yet)

> If we can get our hands on a couple of those thingies, I'm certain  
> that we'll quite soon extablish the critical know-how in the lab.

I'm now looking into Lego Mindstorm NXT (next generation). Lots of
sensors, can be programmed in a graphical environment (under Windows and
Mac only) and there are even compiler projects on sourceforge, Lego
makes design specs available (up to the point that they document HW
interfaces to build your own sensors!). It has bluetooth and usb
connectivity, protocols are open. So I think I'll go for Lego :-)
Startpage: http://mindstorms.lego.com/
Open Source Firmware development kits:
http://mindstorms.lego.com/Overview/nxtreme.aspx
Looks like the low-level stuff is under an open source license -- which
is *not* currently listed on opensource.org, and I've not had time to
read it carefully yet.

A C-Like programming language:
http://bricxcc.sourceforge.net/nbc/

Communication from Linux (Perl):
http://sourceforge.net/projects/linxt/

Ralf
-- 
Ralf Schlatterbeck
email: ralf at zoo.priv.at FAX: +43/2243/26465/23