Peter Wallers Robot Ramblings

[haz]

This is going to be really interesting to see how well it works. Looks very good so far.

[peterwaller]

Made a bit more progress now have the board assembled and the sensors installed in one end.

I have hooked up the two leds on the board to show when the sensors are detecting something and you can see as I move the target across the front of the robot first the left sensor then both and finally just the right sensor see it. The range with a white target seems to be about 20 cms at the moment.
http://youtu.be/k5Yy_620YxE

[Roboteernat]

Wow, thats looking good, Hi Peter, first reply to an actual post.
The board is looking really nice!
Have you got the bottom of the PCB board as the base chassis or is it sitting on 3D printed base/top?
I am looking forward to seeing how it comes out after.

Nat

[peterwaller]

Hi Nat
The board is sitting inside the printed shell, I have made these boards using a thinner PCB material so it probably wouldn't be strong enough for a chassis.
Here it is with motors an wheels added and it actually drives now but no autonomous software yet.

[Remote-Controlled Dave]

Hi Peter, long time reader, first time caller.

I love the idea of always pushing boundaries in ants and this is very cool. A quick question, probably a bit stupid, but just in case. How will you stop the robot sensing the drivers moving outside the arena and turning towards them instead? Could be crucial mid-battle. Or are they too far away?

[BeligerAnt]

Peter already told me the answer to this at Modelworld
He has an R/C channel to enable/disable the guidance system to avoid it locking onto the arena walls, or worse still, the battlebox wall beyond the drop-off

It's very cool 8)

[Remote-Controlled Dave]

Ah, I see. I'm glad it wasn't as gibberingly stupid a question as I first anticipated!

[peterwaller]

I have been having some problems when in autonomous mode with the processor going haywire.(technical term)
I have found that with four HP motors being rapidly switched they draw so much current the battery voltage is dipping way below the 5v regulated voltage.
I have just replaced the motors with 4 of the cheaper low power ones from ebay and it is now working much better although not yet perfectly.
Here is a quick video of the progress so far.
http://youtu.be/f5DDNV_cmFc

[Remote-Controlled Dave]

That's impressive. Will be interesting to see if it works in combat. What's wrong with just having a bit of driving practice Peter?

[peterwaller]

Now he tells me