Motor Controller has spun the wheels!

The wheels spun! It was awesome. This is the guy on board:

Strong H Bridge Controller

I used the RC controller and it's receiver to send PWM signals and the test was successful. It did fry the power supply that I had connected, but only because it was from a leftover laptop and it blew the secondary coils in the transformer trying to pull too many amps. Who cares. Steve grabbed a battery charger from home and we can now charge the internal batteries and use those for future testing, thanks to their amperage being correct. Check the facebook for more pics and info, like us if you want and chip in with ideas. When this is remotely accessible we would like for people to have a chance to pilot it, in shared time slots, around our parking lot in the technology park. We operate from the NextWave facility, located in Troy, MI.

Steve Caldwell

Welcome to the team - Steve Caldwell. Master mechanic, audio technician and guitar player of awesome.

Bluetooth Serial and 2 watt WiFi have arrived

Holy jeez, thank you VirtuaBotix! You have just delivered the BT2S Bluetooth Serial module and it is truly amazing. Nice design, small footprint, breakout cable included and the circuit board has two fortified mounting locations. Also, the 2 watt WiFi board came in. Crazy range Batman. This thing has some crazy tech installed, mixed with a 9db+ antenna gives us about 42db+! With a directional dish attached to this setup, I am sure we could see several miles of connectivity. Long day tomorrow, picking up a drill press, air compressor and helping a friend move to a new flat. I know our mentor, Rachel Armstrong is busy with her protocell research, meaning we need to get this thing operational ASAP to test coverage area, protocell amounts, detection of locations requiring protocell delivery and a number of other challenges. This is nothing that we cannot accomplish with hard work and collaboration. Any questions about our code, please inquire.

GPS Telemetry range with XBEE Pro 2

The range is very good through brick/steel in the building. I am thinking that when this thing is outside the building it will have a nice mile range via line of sight. I will do a walking test this weekend to see what kind of distance that we get.

I ordered a 2000mw Wifi booster and +9db antenna for the control laptop and also ordered a bluetooth to serial board to connect the android phone via bluetooth to the serial of the control arduino.

Here is what is onboard RCHL so far:

Chumby hackerboard with WiFi SSH and serial connections to each Arduino, including serial connection via Xbee if SSH has a problem. Autoreset SSH every 2 hours.

Arduino Mega 256 with the following sensors attached:
4 ultrasonic distance - NSEW
1 motion detector mounted on the top of the MechaTron
1 wind speed
1 digital compass
1 inertial measurement unit

Arduino UNO POE - softserial code running to watch multiple incoming serial data and then piped to XBEE Pro 2.

Arudino UNO - motor control and IP cellular backup communication for long range control piped to UNO POE serial.

POV and Zoom dome camera - IP controlled.

WiFi router with dd-wrt linksys 54G.

Android phone with bluetooth serial connection to Arduino mega.

60 Amp motor control board.

Optorelays connected to POE arduino to control on/off/reset of each other board.

Optorelay kill switch in a 'dead man' configuration.

Things are getting really fun. This weekend I want to accomplish connecting all of the sensors to the Mega 256 and have that dumping data over the Xbee and back to the control laptop. Cheers to robots!

GPS Telemetry is SENDING on RCHL!

We finally have the GPS sending over the XBEE! Here is the code that we used, very simple and easy code on the sending side:

#include <SoftwareSerial.h>

SoftwareSerial GPS = SoftwareSerial(8, 9);

void setup()
{
GPS.begin(9600);
Serial.begin(57600);
}
void loop()
{
Serial.print(GPS.read(), BYTE);
}

On the receiving side, Arduino UNO with an XBEE shield in USB mode and then SiRFDemo running in windows to test output. I set the XBEE's to 57600 for their comms between each other and then the GPS is sending at 9600. Works like a charm, one second refresh rate.

Steve also has all of the boards mounted and they are great looking! Nice job :)

Working on RCHL v1

I was working on RCHL v1 last night in the lab and watching Rachel Armstrong and her Children of the Industrial Revolution TEDx Talk. Really, there is an amazing amount of knowledge and passion happening there.

I installed the Arduino to control the H Bridge for the motor functions and also threw an audio/video transmitter on her to send me the video from the POV/Zoom camera and left and right stereo sound from a pair of mics that I will install this weekend.

The POV/Zoom camera below will be a nice feature. It is 24V and is operated view a web browser. I will add a power over ethernet hub this weekend as well as a 12VDC to 110VAC converter to power whatever goodies that we want to include on the chassis.

Accidental Unatheist

Yesterday I was working on a mechatron and startled myself. I was contemplating ways that humans could be invisible to the mechatron, so that if, for instance the MT was in an empty parking lot and trying to learn the edges and map it out, I would not be part of it's map. This led me to putting up a plexiglass wall that the designers would operate from behind, it would reflect the sensors on the MT and the MT would essentially be blind to the designers. Then I thought it would be cool if the plexiglass was stuck to the designers, so that they could move around, this led to the next best tech and I thought of like a plexiglass particle suit that the designers would wear. Whatever it is who cares. The point is that the designer is invisible to the MT. So let's say you put 20 MT's in an empty parking lot, they are discovering trees and light posts and etc. Soon they are programmed with some AI and begin to 'think'. They formulate ideas, ask questions, build groups, etc. When do they examine themselves or another and start to think about their creator? If I build them with sensors that work great and enable them to operate but they can't see me unless I want them to, is this what is happening daily to mankind? Is there a designer or designers that built us and watch us? What if I send an MT into the parking lot one day that repairs other MT's? It is the best MT that I have ever built and it has features that the others do not. Does this one special MT become a 'messiah' for the others?