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Simple and Cheap Robotic Projects?
siavash_of_stockholm asks: "I have a lot of spare time this so summer, so I've decided to be productive and make my own simple robot. It will come with some basic functions and it should move around without colliding or somehow avoid getting stuck in small areas and so on. I'd prefer to do this without using the popular Lego Mindstorm-kits and instead try to use a laptop and a controller card for the motors and a cheap webcam for vision. Has anyone in the Slashdot community made a similar project (on a tight student budget) and have some documentation of it they can share?"
There is some book on robotics I read that uses a Palm Pilot as the brain of a robot. The catch is that you have to build a simple serial to parallel convertor so you can interface the Palm to the servos and sensors. An old plam can be gotten for $20-$30 and it has an IR sensor, display, fast cpu and lots of memory compared to a microcontroller.
I second using microcontrollers.
I just wrote a basic network stack for the microcontrollers for the lasers our company produces. All the sensors measure the temperature, with feedback loops to the heaters. Several controllers control 5 or so temperatures and heaters each. The controllers are on a serial bus, with another controller for a usb connection.
It's fun writing code knowing you only have a few bytes of memory. heh.
This may not be what you were thinking when you thought "robot" but it uses all the same control principles. Check out John Kleinbauer's site. He's got plans that are great for a beginner. I purchased his "Brute" plans and the really walk you through every step, from finding the materials to programming. I've changed so many things from the plan since I started building that it's barely the same machine, but the plans helped me to avoid problems I'm sure I would have hit without a framework from an experienced designer to follow. Using PVC, Delrin and aluminum as materials makes the construction fairly easy with a minimum of tools too. For one section where I needed an extra precise cut I had a local metal shop make the cut on their abrasive chop saw for me, but other than that the construction has all been done on the tablesaw and drill press. It's been a fun project.