This is a robot that I call The Flex becuase the middle of it is on a hinge to help it turn. So far it has about 10 sensors on it. It will also be my autonomous telepresence robot. And I just had an idea. It should have “feelings” that make it act and react differently. This will be a variable that has a different value deppending on the robot’s surroundings. For example, if you hit it, it will act mad or aggresive. It will also have a variable for instincs. If it “sees” a fast animal, it might hide under a table and pounce when anything goes near it.
It has an ultrasonic sensor in the front, a line tracker kit, it will have a line tracker sense ambient IR, two other line tracker sensors to moniter the back of the robot, two bumpers in the front to protect the ultrasonic sensor, two limit switches on it’s “back”, an optical shaft encoder, and a light sensor. It has an arm with five motors from Owi that I built when I was seven and spent an hour figuring out where the wires go to. It also has the vexplorer cam that I had to fix mounted on a servo. And finally, I have 2 motors per side.
I need another microcontroller to handle all of the motors, 5 Vexblue to Vexred cable converters (DC to PWM),and a pack of servo extensions. That’s a lot of money!
Thanks! I need enough money to buy the vexplorer to vexred motor controllers. I haven’t done much with the arm yet except strip out all the junk. That’s why it has a mess of wires at the front.:o
If the robot is stopped by furniture and none of the other sensors pick it up, this new detachable shaft encoder will sense that the robot has stopped.
If you have any suggestions, please tell me! Thanks!
Great job! Flex is a really good idea. How does flex “see” a fast animal…in other words, how does flex know the animal is fast?
How is the Owi arm setup? For the reason that you could combine certain axis together, which will limit some movements but will limit the inputs you will need.
Also, what is the turning radius of Flex, it looks to be pretty good.
Thanks! I worked hard on it. The animal part was just an idea. I will actually make it lunge at everything in aggresive mode. I came up with a whole system of how it acts based on feelings and instincts. I’ll uplood it once i get my scanner working. I haven’t done much testing because i still need servo extensions, but the middle probably rotates 45 degrees. I can increase it by extending the panel on the back. I made it short so the wires of the arm can reach the microcontroller, but seeing the dc to pwm motor controllers in the picture, i think i should extend it. The arm, wich is dc will be controlled by the dc to pwm controllers i just mentioned. Here is a link:http://www.vexrobotics.com/vex-robotics-cables-accessories-parts.shtml It’s at the bottom of this page. I’ll also show a pic of it extended.
I don’t think i can put two axis together. Each one is important and I can’t put the front and back motors together because they need to be sepparat so the steering works propperly. ill show a diagram of the steering proccess.
If you have any suggestions please tell me! thanks!:^D
I used a videocamera and snapped a picture from a video. My videocamera does not have flash so it was dark. I took a video this morning, so it should look better now. Thanks!
Thanks for your help! I’ll just get a vexplorer microcontroller instead of all the motor controllers. Plus, I came up with a new name. The Flexx AIR (Autonomous Interactive Robot)
