Yes, I named it Buttercup because of the gaudy yellow color of the platform. I got the tank base from the Robot Shop for about $45. That and the DFRobot 4WD platform are the best deals they have for robot bases. Both are $50 or less.
Anyway, I strapped a Chinese Arduino onto a Tamiya universal plate and added a Sharp IR sensor to the nose. I’m powering it with a 7.2v Lipo battery; the charging pigtail sticks out the back, right above the power switch.
The Chinese Arduino clone came with an ATMega 186 and I upgraded it to a 386. Other than the Chinese version of the Duemilove having a red LED instead of green blinking to show serial activity, it’s pretty much an Arduino. That I paid 18 dollars for it versus $28 for the “real” thing doesn’t hurt. It does seem odd not to see the little Italian flag on the board. It says “made in china” there instead.
But it works like any other Arduino and that’s good enough for me. It takes most of the Hong Kong vendors a couple of weeks to ship something here to the US and a week more for vendors from lesser cities in China’s interior. The wait isn’t much fun, but what do you want from a Chinese seller on eBay?
This is the fourth tank type robot I’ve built. Three have the same kind of base, but they are gray in color where this one is bumble bee yellow. I built another with a really sexy tread system and modern and lithe platform but it doesn’t work worth a crap. My fault; I need to change its motor controller and write a better Arduino sketch for it.
But this one works as well as my first, the MyBot. It avoids obstacles by virtue of its infrared vision and manages to only go the wrong place when an obstacle is too high for the IR to see it. My living room couch, for instance.
I’m using an Arduino Motor Shield from NKC. This is a kit like the Adafruit Mshield, and only drives two motors instead of four. But its shape permits free access to the analog pins on the Arduino, which is handy when you’re using an input sensor of some sort. I could build it with passthru headers on the bottom 6 pins and that would give access to the free digital pins on the Arduino.
This was made to be simple and it is. So now it’s time to give it a place on the Stuff I Built shelf to play with now and then.
