Arduino!

Say hello to my micro-controlling little friend.

I just received my order from sparkfun electronics and am super psyched to play around with my new toy.

What is it?

I'm to lazy to write my own blurb so here's the official one from the arduino website:

Arduino is an open-source physical computing platform based on a simple i/o board, and a development environment for writing Arduino software. The Arduino programming language is an implementation of Wiring, itself built on Processing.

Arduino can be used to develop interactive objects, taking inputs from a variety of switches or sensors, and controlling a variety of lights, motors, and other outputs. Arduino projects can be stand-alone, or they can be communicate with software running on your computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, MaxMSP.)

So basically it's for making robutts! I haven't done any electronics in years and I was looking at picking up one of the lego mindstorm kits but the price scared me off a bit so I went searching for alternatives and this board was a real stand out and has a emerging community of developers. Plus it's wicked cheap, $31 USD for the board so I couldn't say no.

Mindstorms vs Arduino:

The LEGO® Mindstorms Robotics invention system 2.0 consists of:
The RCXT -this is the lego microcomputer
2-motors
2-touch sensors
1-light sensor
710 give or take -other lego non-robotic pieces
costs: $300+

Now a similar setup for an arduino would have to be bought in individual peices and would likely require some more assembly, so lets take a look at the options to make a similar setup:

2 motors

now little dc motors are in all sorts of things so I recommend ripping them out of kids toys that can be bought for super cheap at garage sales or thrift stores alternatively tamiya makes a really awesome kit called the twin motor gear box that lets you set up different gear ratios so you get a lots more control speed/toque wise and since each wheel can be controlled independently it can be used for skid steering. I think it might use the same sort of wheel connection as the lego wheels but I haven't gotten mine yet so I'm not sure? On top of the actual motors you will need a motor driver, a straight motor driver IC costs about $4 and requires a bit of electronics knowledge (you can google schematics pretty easily) alternatively you can buy premade motor driver kits here's one and another. In total making one yourself will probably cost about $7. So for the cost total we'll use the tamiya gearbox at say $14 and a prebuilt driver kit for $15 so that's a total of $29

2 touch sensors

These are just push button switches, prices vary depending on the size that you want. Here's example $1.45 these can obviously be taken from all sorts of other junked electronics. So for our totals we'll make it a flat $3.

1 light sensor

This is another one that can be made with a few bucks worth of components, there are many different options for wiring one of these up the main thing you need is a photoresistor $1-2 and a circuit that transfers the change of resistance into a change of voltage here's a nice write up of wiring one up. I have seen a pre-built kit but I can't find it at the moment. I'd say making one of these would cost $5. To personally have no use for a light sensor at the moment so I don't intend bother with this one but one can be made and interfaced easily. I'll guess that a kit costs $12 for our totals.

all the other lego / conclusion

So dollar wise for mostly prebuilt components we're at a total of $46 plus the $35 for the Arduino we're at a total of $81 in Canadian funds so that leaves you with $219 to buy the other lego peices with if you want...or you can fabricate your projects using any other construction medium: wood, plastic, metal, cardboard, close to anything really! It is clear what my choice is but there is alot that the Mindstorms kit has going for it, it's alot easier to ask for the one big kit for christmas/birthday/wedding than to hand someone a list of however many components you want to make your own kit. In my opinion a good toy store is a lot easier to find than a good electronics store so you're liable to spend a lot more time waiting for the mail man if you go the Arduino route. Would I sing a different tune if I had a the Mindstorm kit? Maybe, well I doubt I would be disappointed if I had one but I can't justify the expense, so I'll never know...unless you want to hook a me up? Didn't think so.

I have nothing to do with LEGO® or INTERLEGO AG and there subsidiaries. they are good people, buy lots from them, they'll make you smarter while having fun. They own all rights to there name and whatnot and I own nothing and smell.

What are you going to do with it?

Hopefully lots, the major project that I'd like to one day conquer is making a automatic CD/DVD copier. Basically the commercially available ones cost in the thousands of dollars and the basic function of the robotics of the systems aren't that difficult. CD/DVD drawer opens with burnt cd, robot grabs burnt cd and replaces with blank CD/DVD, drawer closes and burns blank CD/DVD and repeat. It has been done before by this dude using mindstorms and wood and this dude using wood and a bunch-o relays and a computer program.

But that's far off, for now I just want to play around with blinking LED's and hooking it up to various things and see what I can get it to do.

Where am I at:

December 30, 2006 - I got my Tamiya dual motor gearbox about a week ago and I built it on boxing day, it had some pretty crappy instructions but I had it up and running in about a half hour. I hooked it up direct to a AAA baterry and it runs at a good clip with plenty of torque. I just have to throw together a little app for the arduino to show how to do the basic skid steering and I'll have the basis for a bump bot. w00t! It's yet to be seen if direct driving the morots from the arduino will cause problems...otherwise I'll have to build a motor driver to clean up the voltage...I don't think I'll have to but we'll see.

November 20, 2006 - I'm impatient, I paid more than I should have for a bunch of basic electronic stuff from Source CC. I was going to do the cylon *ahem* night rider demo tonight but my internet is down so I updated this page, added stuff, moved some stuff around.
November 19, 2006 - Got the gui working thanks to a work-around found on the arduino message board, played around with the hello world blinking LED demo for awhile works like a charm, woot woot! I also discovered I have one faulty USB port, weird.
November 5, 2006 - Admiring the blue circuit board trying to get all the packages working together to get the gui working. The tutorial for Debian isn't working for me thus far. I might take a look at the command line tutorial when I next get around to playing with it.

If you are in need of contacting me my email is drpepper_billyidol_mrt@hotmail.com