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Am I the only one?  :200-
This is my relatively new passion. I found writing code blocks to make machines do what we need them too is truly fascinating.
How Many other people out there are interested in robotics. I would love chatting about new code and advances in A.I.

talk soon  :88-

Blake

Tell us more...It's great to hear about  peoples other hobbies !  :89-

Sure just let me know when the eyes glaze over. I have always been fascinated with electronics my every day job requires me to diagnose extremely complex electrical problems. About a year ago I wanted to start to learning the source code that drives the I/O relationship between the computer and physical world. So I picked up some entry level kits from parallax to start learning how to write the code that commands the different array of sensors and motors out there. The more I learn the more fascinated I become with electronics. This little guy in the picture is called Boe. Short for Boe-bot.
I started working on him about two months ago. He now has the ability to sense objects and distance using ultrasonic sensors and have absolute knowledge of the distance he as traveled and return to a predetermined spot. This sounds simple but you would be surprised how many parts and code is required for true dead reckoning. There are a lot of additional kits available to teach the user a number of other sensors and there applications. I plan to learn them all and eventually build something that really might have true purpose. Till then I just have fun with these toys.

 I would love to hear from anyone else that interested in this subject.

Thanks

Blake       

An excellent application for robotics would be an S2000 with it's Netplexed system.
It would be astounding! - the ideas that come to my mind in using robotics! :89-
I love playing around with stepper motors...
whether they're tiny little ones in remote controlled helicopters or
spinning a bonus wheel on a slot!  :96-

I haven't tried much of anything in robotics for 25 years. We used FORTH and LISP back in the olden days.  :25-
I wonder if they still use some modern form of those languages to program robots? :103-

SF :31-

The languages I am learning are Pbasic and c++
Thinking about taking up assembly language.

Blake

   I did (tried, no fought with) Assembly language YEARS ago and found it to be awesome as far as lighting execution and small footprint but that was when computers were really slow...the days of the 8080 chips and I believe there was a 6800 ?

Hello Blake

Great to see another robot hobbyist here. Givin that like slots its a mix of electronics and mechanics I am surprised that there are not more members interested in the hobby.
Anyway unlike most members here fixing slots is my job - electronics, robotics and programming my hobbies.

Most serious programming is done in higher level languages - Commercially they mostly use C - It is probably a good thing to learn assembler but it is a lot of work. (Assembler programming for PICS was part of my curriculum while studying digital electronics)

The parallax stuff is extremely popular in robotics - When finances allow would love to get one of those. Currently I have the lego mindstorm kits which are also pretty cool.

Anyway have a look at the following - Great mag with a great selection of projects from pretty simple to very complex. I subscribe to the digital edition as buying imported printed magazines here in South Africa is extremely expensive.

www.servomagazine.com/ (http://www.servomagazine.com/)

Regards
Ian

Ian

Ian,
 Thanks for the mag info I read a couple of pages and found the articles extremely useful. I think I will focus on C language as this is what is used commercially.

Thanks
 Blake

I'm not surprised to learn that C is the language du jour. Is C++ used, or is the added complexity unnecessary in robotics?

Have not really tried the C compilers before - I think C++ is over the top for most microcontollers.

Your next step is to decide on a microcontoller. Microchip PIC's and AVR are widely used in robotics. There are of course lots of other option it all depends on waht exactly you are trying to do.

Ian

Hi Guys

Blake's post inspired me to get of my Lazy ass and do something instead of just reading about things.

I picked this up at the local electronics supplier for about R700 (+/-$90). Thats almost double of retail cost in the states.
http://www.microchipdirect.com/productsearch.aspx?Keywords=DV164120 (http://www.microchipdirect.com/productsearch.aspx?Keywords=DV164120)

Took about 30 mins to install everything and program demo program to the board - 4 Running LEDS. Speed controlled by onboard pot.
There are Demo versions of a C compiler and a Basic compiler on the disks that came with the kit.

For now will do some simple stuff in assembly and see if i can get all the stuff I wrote way back when I was studying electronics back to life (Many many late nights trying to get practicals in before the deadlines - To make things worse i did other peoples projects for beer  :96- Those were the good old days)

You can do just about anything with these little nifty devices - As far as slots go here are some project I have in mind
* Coin in simulator - There is already another thread running on this. Should be a good start
* Bill In Simulator - The S+ and PE+ use a pulsed protocol. If i can determine the pulse timings it should be possible to replicate comms from BV to credit machine.
* SAS simulator - EFT and AFT to and from machine.

Will keep you posted on progress.
Ian

The reason I am learning C++ is for high intellectual calculation and graphic comprehension. Graphics take so much power and resources that even my fast computer slows way down when asked to interpit garphic from a low res cam. From what I read so far the languages and hardware for true A.I. still are not developed yet.

I thought about the bill and coin Simulator too. I just did not know the signal out put form the BV or coin comp to CPU. If I could find what the CPU is looking for  recreating it should be no problem at all.

Thanks for sharing

Blake

Hi All

This is pretty cool. Its been done before but this is the only one I have seen that does the entire solving algorithm on board. Can be built from the standard Mindstorm NXT set according to the site.
http://tiltedtwister.com/tiltedtwistervideo.html (http://tiltedtwister.com/tiltedtwistervideo.html)

Ian

LISP?!?!?

I forgot that I even knew LISP.

Ed

It was well suited for developing recursive functions, as I recall.