Another particle-bot prototype

Well, I couldn't wait to get a real chassis for my new Particle-Bot boards, so in about 20 minutes I put together this prototype - made form really cool purple cardboard.  

Here's a really crappy video of the 'bot programmed for light seaking

Particle-Bot boards delivered

One of my favorite books of all time is Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology by Valentino Braitenberg.  It describes a series of robots controlled using small networks of synthetic neurons, and how  with just a few neurons very complex behaviors can emerge.  Complex enough in fact to be ascribed anthropomorphic labels such as fear, shyness, and indecision.  This book is the inspiration for my latest robot, somewhat appropriately named Particle-bot because it's small, and I happen to like the group They Might be Giants, and their song Particle Man.

This is a shot of the prototype Particle-Bot.  It's built with small gear motors, a small Li-Po battery, and boards I fabricated and built up.  The chip is an ATTiny85 processor, so the software is written using the Arduino IDE, and it programmed using an Arduino with minimal supporting circuitry, and software from here.

After getting the prototype up and going, I refined the board layout, added some other bits, and sent the boards here to get them commercially produced.  The Eagle files for the board are available here.  Today the boards arrived in the mail - YEAH!!

Here's a shot of the front & back of the board.  The maximum size for the boards in the order I made was two inches by two inches.  Because Particle-Bot is so small, I was able to fit the main board, and the "eye stalks", as well as two other boards that implement the ATTiny programming circuit for the Arduino.

Here's the boards cut apart into the the five pieces.  I used my jeweler's saw to cut them apart, and I'm not too great at straight lines with it, but you get the idea. The sixth piece (the thinnest) is waste.

So here's a picture all the boards built up, ready to go to work. The two boards connected together with the twisted wires are the programming circuit.

And this is how it fits on top of an Arduino Duemilenove clone.  I'll be working on a tutorial on how to setup and use the programmer real soon now.

I'm still working on a design so the chassis of the robot can be 3D printed, so seeing the 'bot completely built out and running will have to wait until that's done.

Stella with style

I had to put down the drawbot project for a bit, so I put some time into Stella this evening.  One of the things I want to do is somehow make the web cam on Stella's head less obvious, and more part of the brrd.

So tonight I worked up a quick prototype of an idea I've been thinking about.  With some cardboard, hot glue, masking tape, and rigid foam I made a crest.  If I decide to go this route, I'll be making the real one out of sewn fleece stuffed with polyfill.  If I get ambitious I may even put a servo inside and make it move.

Please leave me a comment to let me know how you like (or don't like) the crest.

Drawbot Design Files Released

I have released the drawbot 3 design files on Google drive.  There are Eagle schematic and board files, as well as the Gerber files I'll be sending in for fabrication.

The Comms board has been prototyped and I know works.  The other two have not yet been built up, so who knows at this point.  Enjoy.

Drawbot USB to RS-485 converter up and running

I found out soldering .025 pitch leads is pretty tough.  I let the magic smoke out of one FTDI chip before I really figured out how to do it.  This evening I found the last bugs, and now it's up and running.  Using the frequency counter feature of my meter I can tell the output changes when I send in data over USB, but I don't have any RS-485 devices right now to check if the data is any good.  I guess that's the next task before I send the boards out for fab.

Drawbot 3 New tools and new board

Here's a snap of my new soldering tools.  Iron, tweezers, flux, tip cleaner, helping hands, solder holder I built.  The iron has .012 inch tip I need to do .025 inch leads.

Here's a build up of the USB to RS-485 board.  The first real surface mount board I've built.  It took some time, but wasn't as tough as I thought it would be.

Drawbot 3 is underway

Well, I've got all the boards designed, and all the last of the parts arrived today from Digi-Key.  Now I'm starting the actual build by etching the first board.  This is a USB to RS-485 converter, and will provide my laptop with an RS-485 bus.  Tomorrow I go buy a new soldering iron, and some damn sharp tweezers.

I need to say thanks to Smallbox and Angie's List for the $1000.00 Nice Grant that makes this all possible.