The cricket was my first step into robotics. It was a fun project me and a friend of mine William Dubel took upon ourselves in order to get our feet wet. This project would set the path for us to follow in the future. We had many bumps on the road however the were all eventually overcome and the finished product was a sucess. The design of the cricket was taken from http://home.earthlink.net/~henryarnold/ we basically copied the design altering just a few minor things. to watch a video of its first steps click here for other videos look below.
| Microcontroller
|
To control your robot
autonomously or to control just about anything actually, you can use a Stamp. We
used a BASIC Stamp from www.parallaxinc.com.
A stamp is basically a small microcontroller, BASIC interpreter, EEPROM, clock,
regulator, and I/O all on a single 24 pin chip! Very cool and you don't even
need an EEPROM programmer. It will cost you $50 though, probably making the
controller the most expensive component on your robot. Check out all the I/O
pins!
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| Parts
|
Just about all parts can be purchased from www.digikey.com. Their online ordering system is the best I've seen, given that they sell millions of items. The only things you'll need to go elsewhere for are for tools, glues, and servos. |
| PolyCarbonate (Lexan): |
For the body of your
robot, polycarbonate is an excellent choice, you can cut it with machine tools
or a dremel. 1/8" is good for most projects. It's stronger than Plexiglas, and
lasts longer than wood (looks nicer too), and a lot easier to cut than metal. Be
sure to get the correct glue, like Poly-Zap from Pacer.
|
| Expenses: | Prepare to cash out a couple
hundred bucks in parts and tools for your first robot, a lot more if it's
your first project in general. The biggest expense in building a robot is your time. If it takes you 5 hours to track down parts for your robot, you just spent at least $100 of your time. It doesn't make sense to save on materials by building your own hinges if it takes you an hour to do it. Order it, and use your time for the stuff you can't buy, like designing or programming your robot. Also you can get free samples of almost any component just by requesting. Not sure if that custom serial port is going to fit correctly? Try to get a sample before you cash out $10. I found that anything that the regular consumer will have no use for, like an 8bit data register or 99.9% pure glycerin, is available as a sample somewhere. |
Note: Some material was taken from Will's site
Watch William and I build a robot from the internet! (.wmv)