[Robotgroup] Drive a Droid proposal...

[Gray Mack]

An optional thing to add depending on the space would be a death star like facade made of painted cardboard or something to cover a back wall or something smaller just for photo shoots. Possibly some of those life size cardboard star wars characters they used to sell in the mall?
To some people, having a photo of themselves with R2 may be more cool than driving him, so it would be nice to allow for this. 
After the persons turn ends, the operator quickly moves the droid to the photo area and locks movement, someone opens the barricade, the people step up for the photo with their own camera and then you close it back.
During this time, someone explains the controls to the next person.
I recommend a custom user console board that has icons or labels of what each button or control does. A flight stick or some other control for movement, levers for other gadgets and sounds. I think this would be more fun and intuitive than a standard 2 stick transmitter. The stick would be proportional if per-chance someone wanted to do a non full-throttle movement. 
Or we could do a fancy light up capacitive touch pad like in star trek?
The console would also contain the play timer and announce "Times up" so the human doesn't have to boot the person manually.
A wireless camera is always nice so the user gets that robot's eye view screen to enhance the immersion.

A secondary override control board is needed for the operator, possibly allowing them to tweak speed and acceleration ramp-up, speaker volume, etc.
Maybe a third battery powered remote for load in/out movement.

The vex controller would require a lot of modification to do this but it is possible. I think Servo or N&V did a vex radio mod a few months back.

Another option is to go digital with some sort of well tested wireless link like the TI RF boards that Paul gave us a demo of, (If the response time is good enough) 

-Gray


--- On Wed, 7/9/08, Vern Graner <vern at txis.com> wrote:

> From: Vern Graner <vern at txis.com>
> Subject: Re: [Robotgroup] Drive a Droid proposal... How to detect the "fence"?
> To: "The Robot Group Mailing List" <robotgroup at puremagic.com>
> Date: Wednesday, July 9, 2008, 12:53 PM
> TomD wrote:
> 
>  > If you want to run with a Vex controller, it will
> take two receivers.
>  > You pick different channels for the TX-RX and then
> you can do a
>  > trainer config. Hold one of the back buttons on the
> 'Master' radio
>  > and the 'Trainee' radio controls the bot,
> release that button and
>  > control reverts to the 'Master'. Also if the
> 'Master' gets out of
>  > range, you can set the bot to a safe mode.
> 
> Good to know. I have a vex xmitter and so does rick, so
> this could be an 
> option. :)
> 
>  > I think All Electronics was selling a Vex transmitter
> and a
>  > receiver for  about $30.
> 
> Thats where I got mine:
> 
> http://tinyurl.com/5uh653 [links to allelectronics.com]
> 
>  > You still need the controller brick and programming
> kit.
> 
> Hmm. I just have the radio. :( IIRC, there is a library for
> the 
> propeller to interpret the signals from a vex xmitter..?
> hmmm. 
> <checking> yup! there is!
> 
> http://obex.parallax.com/objects/197/
> 
> :)
> 
>  > Is R2 is going to be differential drive like Eyebot?
> 
> Yes. It has two drive wheels, one on either side, and the
> center foot 
> has passive casters in it.
> 
>  > I could test code on it, or you could just build a
> simple 2 wheel bot.
> 
> That would be very cool! The more people we have that can
> help get the 
> electronics "smarts" going, the better! :)
> 
> Vern
> 
> -- 
> Vern Graner CNE/CNA/SSE    | "If the network is down,
> then you're
> Senior Systems Engineer    | obviously incompetent so why
> are we
> Texas Information Services | paying you? Of course, if the
> network
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> don't need
> Austin Office 512 328-8947 | you, so why are we paying
> you?" ©VLG
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