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The Mythbusters Construct a Kit Bot
A reader wrote in to mention a writeup of a really great Mythbusters project. Hyneman, Savage, and Imahara went out and purchased a 'Vex' robot kit from RadioShack, and constructed the bot to see what it was like. They were pleasantly surprised. From the article: "Jamie Hyneman: I must admit I was expecting to turn up my nose at a do-it yourself robotics kit from Radio Shack. But guess what? The VEX System kicks butt. In a total of about 12 person-hours, Adam Savage and Grant Imahara (my cohosts on MythBusters) and I were able to build a functional, if somewhat basic, prototype equivalent of an iRobot's PackBot."
http://www.radioshack.com/search/index.jsp?kwCatI
Good break for Radio Shack, you can't pay for that kind of advertising.
That government is overspending on military hardware? ;)
On a more serious note, Grant had his BattleBot robot and Jamie had that soda can shooting vending machine. No wonder these guys were all over that robot kit. I might need to get ahold of one of those things myself.
Serving time in Aristotelean prison for violating laws of physics
They actually said "person hours?"
I know my son will love this (OK, me too). He has been asking me to get him a robot kit. But I'll probably have to get two kits so I don't take over his project :-)
Then robot wars!
Oh, yeah: I for one welcome our robotic overlords...
Ramen
I hope they don't discontinue the discount as a result of the Slashdotting...
Ramen
Or else they actually did pay for them to do just that.
You have to understand that Radio Shack is teetering on the edge of self-destruction due to piss poor management tactics and poor product placement.
They are shuttering between 400-700 corporate stores (I don't think this will affect franchise owners, but who knows) and reevaulating where they stand on what products they need to be pushing.
The robotics kit was a safe bet to do a little advertising without getting wrecked because of shoddy materials or lousy manuals.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
Adam Savage: Our goal was to see if we could get it to climb stairs. As far as I know, there are few (if any) toys that will climb stairs; and only a few high-end robots like the PackBot and the humanoid Honda robots that can perform this task.
:-)
I guess climbing downstairs doesn't count?
The Vex System is no more a robot than a remote controlled model airplane or my car is.
A remote controlled device is NOT a robot.
A robot is a mechanical and electronic device that performs a function(s) under its own control. It is capable of making its own decisions.
An android (NOT "droid") is a robot with the appearance of a human or animal.
For further enlightment read "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov.
Fata viam invenient.
There was a mini-FIRST made of VEX robots this year. We saw the demo at FRC Hartford last week. Very impressive, makes it more accessible to middle schoolers and they "play" with it less than Mindstorms. The electronics comes from Innovation FIRST, the folks who make the brains for the FIRST robotics teams, and they're also VEXLabs. We're using it for the Trinity College Firefighting Robotics Contest, and we've gotten a chassis built and running under program control and effectors prototyped in record time.
One thing better than Mindstorms is that you can more easily add other materials, parts etc., and make it more bombproof without resorting to toxic adhesives or plastic-eating tools...
We're still wondering why RS is having a fire sale - two local stores were cleaned out as of Friday night - we just loaded up the last ultrasound and light sensors we could find. Some have said they're just dropping the retail line at RS, some have said it's just a sale, an eMail to the edu & gov rep at RS Fort Worth is yet unanswered. VEXLabs is still selling at full price. Hope they're just switching horses, but with RS no longer selling electronic parts, this was the sweetest thing they'd had in a while.
Two heads-ups: the pushbutton inputs use negative logic (thanks, VEX - that was a half hour of "stump the chumps"...) - and there is no "run" switch on the bot - programs (and the wheels they control) run once they complete the download - so either mold some tiny cinder blocks or grab an extra bumper button (or other sensor) and create a latch as the first step in the program...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
and some sort of probe to the robot. Then I'll be interested.....
Also, I can definately see people developing their own components for these things. Paying $9.99 for a phototransistor is a little ridiculous if you know how to set one up on your own.
Erm, yes they can. It's called product placement. If you see a person drinking Pepsi in a movie, do you think that's a coincidence? No, it's someone only job to contact companies and ask for money. Favorite targets are cars, beverages, guns (USA), fast food restaurants, ....
.... now we're going to do this .... we're really going to do this .... we're doing this .... we've finished doing this .... we have done this ....). Like if we're idiots with the memory span of a goldfish.
Anyway, mythbusters has gone infomercial it seems.. Not that it was such a great show, they repeat the same thing over and over again (next we're going to do this
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
What myth are they busting here, exactly? That everything from RadioShack sucks?
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
> ...the memory span of a goldfish.
yes, that was a cool episode.
I want to see a comparison between this and that Lego robot so I know which to buy.
Just goes to show that good ideas can pay off.
I'm considering getting one to play with. I haven't read more than a little bit of what I call a good experience the mythbusters had with it.
In Canada, Circuit City had to rename all the Radio Shack stores to The Source. Some sort of convoluted legal thingy where they owned InterTAN which was the NoN US parts of Radio Shack for 20 years and then Radio Shack Prime decided to cut them off.
Personally, the new name gives them a fight chance at respectability albeit slim.
R.S. has had difficult financials recently so it is a good thing that as proper geeks the MythBusters gave them some well-deserved support.
Did you read TFA? "Also available is a programming module that will allow you to hook your robot up to a computer and download a program for adding autonomous capabilities . You can use the remote control only, let it operate autonomously , or have some combination of the two," and "When an object is sensed, the robot takes over and initiates an automated climbing sequence... " That qualifies as "performs a function(s) under its own control". It has sensors and a controller on board, and you can program it. It doesn't say how much programming you can fit in there (I doubt it will be opening the fridge and bringing you a beer), but it DOES qualify as being capable of performing some functions under its own control. It can decide which climbing algorithm is appropriate for the sensor inputs it has, and it can respond appropriately.
And finally, the whole thing sounds like it fits very well into both the American Heritage and Wikipedia definitions, which (by the way) do appear to allow remote control devices.
Yeah, Ft. Worthless tends to do crap like that.
For more amusement and if you need to get your blood pressure raised you can see what they are up at at http://www.radioshacksucks.com/
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
From TFA 'Also available is a programming module that will allow you to hook your robot up to a computer and download a program for adding autonomous capabilities.'
The problem with Vex is that it's primarily intended for highschool-aged people - or at least that's RadioShack's stand on it - and how many highschoolers are going to shell out > $300 for a robot kit?
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -Douglas Adams, THHGTTG
Artificial intelligence is now available for installation in all robots with sufficient memory space and processing power.
Back in the day RS had some awesome stuff like the 100 in 1 and 200 in 1 electronics kits. They provided all sorts of experiments that could be built upon. I had em' all.
Probably why I was able to easily diagnose and repair problems on my TRS-80 Model 1 with EI and disk system. So I'm happy to see them succesfully branch out into robotics. I know they've made some half hearted attempts, like that robotic arm they had on the shelves a number of years ago.
But I lament the fact that RS stores have slid from being geek paradise in some form, to a consumer electronics orgy. Thankfully there are plenty of online sources for parts these days but there was something about being bored on a Saturday afternoon and going to RS and getting the parts to build some gadget or another.
My robotics class here at school used a few Vex kits and accessories to build robots. We came out with three cool robots that all were quite successful in 3 weeks. Check out pictures here:
http://flickr.com/photos/yellowbkpk/tags/vex/
Also, we spent a lot of time making custom sensors and modifying the ones that Vex gave us. They are all very easy to get in to and examine (like this one) and interface with (like the switch debouncer that I made). Although the metal parts are just a little "different" then everything else, meaning you have to machine or buy new pieces, some Lego pieces will mesh with the Vex pieces quite nicely (as in this home-made shaft encoder).
I seriously misread that as "The Mythbusters Construct a Kill Bot." I was thinking that maybe Radio Shack was prepared to do anything to restore their former glory...
and reevaulating where they stand on what products they need to be pushing.
That's good. My local Radio Shack only sells 40-conductor IDE ribbon cables, not the 80-conductor kind that's been required for like the last 5 years.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I'm done with sigs. Sigs are lame.
...aren't Jamie and Grant already quite knowledgeable about robotics? I mean, Grant has experience in competitive robotics, and Jamie built that soda-can-shooting, remote-controlled vending machine. Not exactly your typical RS customers.
That said, I am looking forward to seeing them build the kit...
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
From Battle Botse am_profile.asp?id=47
Heavyweight: Blendo
http://www.battlebots.com/meet_the_robots3/meet_t
Grant apparently wasn't involved in the construction according to the site.
I work as a schoolteacher in an affluent NJ district. The MIDDLE SCHOOLERS walk about with iPods, Razors, and Louis Vuitton bags.
Trust me, $300 for a neat robotic toy is nothing.
This is NOT a radio shack product, it is a kit robot developed by US F.I.R.S.T. Robotics. They hold competitions every year between teams. If you are interested in the robots, check out Cheif Delphi Fourms. They are a team in pontiac who are rather loud. http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/index.php?. (Nobody really likes chief delphi because most people think they have engineers build their robot and not the students.)
They also have VEX Contests.
The cast of Magnum PI just built a model airplane and didnt even sniff the glue.
Probably because the store is closing. Radio Shack is having big problems. Profit is down 62% for the quarter, the CEO lied on his resume and was fired, and they're closing 400 to 700 stores.
Apparently most of Radio Shack's profits come from selling cell phone contracts.
They are shuttering between 400-700 corporate stores ....
the big thing is most of the stores that are closing are
1 not performing
2 being moved (may have a shortish period between)
and anyway with 5000 stores thats only 10% (this number does not include dealer/franchise stores)
although i will give you that some of our PHBs are pointier than normal (and are now asking "would you likes fries with that?")
psst btw the stores that are closing will have some "THIS STORE ONLY specials"
i would think that if Vex lights up then
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
actually what happened was when CC bought InterTan RS Went to court to be able to buy the
RS.ca stores to prevent CC from diluting the RS name
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
When I was a kid, I thought my younger sisters were so lucky.
They didn't need to fear man-eating sharks.
I think the average intellegence of everyone would have to go down 40% for that to happen.
Grant did, however write the book on making battlebots type robots... too bad it came out after the fad had died down.
I bought one of these when they frist came out and it is great except for one major thing. I bought the kit to hook up to my laptop to experiment with vision and intelligence. I figured the robot would save me a few months and even some money designing my own equivalent and be super easy to modify. Unfortunately FIRST didn't come out with its Programming module for 4 months and when it did it was only windows compatible and was only to program the pic microcontroller. There is no easy way yet to send easy commands out your serial, parallel, or better usb port to communicate with the robot. This is a major feature that they need to include. Computer science laboratories and even highschools now spend tons of money on robots for vision or intelligence applications. They don't want to design the robot themselves, they want to just have something they can set their laptop on, get some physical real world data from and instruct to move it around. The vex would be an ideal tool but there is no interface for this.
This is all well and good, but how am I going to afford the alcohol to fuel its power cells?
... and then they built the supercollider.
every thought most slashdot readers takes 10 minutes to read the artical before commenting....haha ya right.
They don't just have the base model kit.
From what I can tell they have:
- starter kit
- Tank tread kit (2X)
- Ultra sonic ranging sensor
- Extra hardware kit
I just bought a vex kit about an hour ago as well, damn cool so far.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
What plenty of people don't understand is that building a prototype is not the same thing as building a product.
Some issues that aren't even on MythBuster's radar:
Making something work as close to 100% of the time as possible.
Making the system robust to almost all situation.
Making the system hardened so that dropping it doesn't matter, for example.
Making it so the marginal cost of product is far lower than the prototyping cost.
There are hundreds of serious university homegrown robot that can do some great things. Hobbiests make thousands more. How many companies have robots robust enough for the military to use? A dozen or so...
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
This thing has a "phone connector" on it marked "serial", but how can I program it with my own cable and (possibly) Linux? Cross compilers for PICs are all over the place for free, and I know how to solder up my own cable, so why do I need to pay $100 for some lame windows software?
Please post any links to hacks for this. Schematics?
If not, then I will have to rip out whatever chip they have in there and replace it with a AVR, PIC or even an old 68HC11 board I have laying around.
They don't sell any car radios or the adaptor you might need if you want to hook up the radio antenna in your GM vehicle to your new car radio. The employee told me they don't sell "that kind of stuff" anymore...
Check these out http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/ http://www.vexrobotics.com/index.php/posts?thread_ id=5&offset=0
For a second, I thought that was an FRC kit bot.
It's a basic robot for the FIRST Robotics Competition, made from a kit from IFI Robotics. IFI also does the backstage work for the Vex robotics stuff. FRC kits are sorta like Vex except with beefier motors and on a larger scale. Too bad the sensors in FRC kits are pretty lame (e.g. the kit has hall effect sensors, but no nice shaft encoders).
Here's a beautiful FRC robot from team 254 (a Californian team that builds awesome robots): http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/img/241/24126b01$300 dollars is not that much, especially if multiple people are working on it. The entry fee for the FIRST robotics competition is about $5000, and plenty of teams pay that. Some have other funding sources, but last year most of it was directly paid for by parents. Not really a direct comparison, but people have money.
Frosty piss posts are worthless, GNAA posts are worthless and hurtful, but they are the least of this site's neuroses.
Sorry, the RS dude read the wrong price, it's on sale for $50 but I didn't get one because he said $100 at the time. Good thing, because I found some info that lets you do the same thing with a little work. The interface is a TTL level RS-232 port, and you can get RS-232 to TTL level using a transistor and / or a TL082 op-amp. Just remember it's low level current so you can use resistors, diodes, and most PCs pick up ground as a (-) on the RS-232 port so no reason to go through all the trouble of making negative voltages. Why do people always do overkill on stuff like this? It's a simple inverter and only two signals to deal with! You can even get power directly from the RS-232 end if you like. You can trick the negative voltage if you have to by offsetting the (+) input of the op-amp or other such tricks you should know by now anyway.
. html
"Vex is a pic controller. It is programmed in C using either Intelitek EasyC or Microchip MPLab, Cbot compiler, and IFI loader." "Computing power for the Micro Controller comes from two Microchip PIC18F8520 CPUs--CMOS processors that fly through instructions at a whopping 10 MIPS apiece and have 32K of program memory. The PIC18 contains a built-in A/D converters, a handful of digital input and interrupt lines, and an RS-232/RS-485 USART for serial"
https://jvex-robotics.dev.java.net/ToolChainSetup
http://www.vexlabs.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=9
Here is pinout for the RX1 or RX2 ports:
Pin 1 - Power +5 volts (the right most pin when looking at the front connector)
Pin 2 - Receiver
Pin 3 - Gnd
Pin 4 - Tether Detect (the left most pin when looking at the front connector)
RX1 and RX2 are inputs to the Master processor and can not be changed.
"The TX and RX data pins are on the inside by the marking. Closest to the TX label is data. The center pin is +5V and ground is the outside pin closest to the edge of the Vex Controller. This pattern is true for all the pins in the connector.
There are 2 Serial Ports on the User processor. One is connected to the Serial Port and the other one is connected to the RX and TX on the Analog/Digital connector. Both these Serial Ports are TTL levels and not RS232. Do not connect RS232 devices to these Serial Ports without level converters or damage may occur. There is no I2C bus available."
um it uses 7.2 and 9.6 rc batteries not eth feul cells? btw if you have the two packs get your hands on a 23-440 (its the same charger thats in the vex package)
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
I too used to rail against changing usage... and sometimes, in weaker moments, I still do. But a good friend once pointed out to me that it IS a living language - and it lives by changing. I hope that came across with the proper level of "Truthiness".
we got a heads up from RS edu and govt rep thru first that the sale was on and was only thru their office - then we got word that every store in our area was selling it out and the sale is online too. somthing's up, and it's not just some stores closing...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
We've Got Blank Stares(tm).
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
When I first read this I thought it said that Mythbusters were making a rootkit bot.
Fighting over religion is like seeing whose imaginary friend is best.
They don't sell any car radios or the adaptor you might need if you want to hook up the radio antenna in your GM vehicle to your new car radio.
Fascinating that Wal-Mart has nearly as good an electronics parts section as Radio Shack, ain't it?
The employee told me they don't sell "that kind of stuff" anymore...
While to you and me that means "useful stuff" I suspect to the MBA at Radio Shack who dreamt up this scheme, that means "low gross margin stuff". If you're just dying to find a middle man to sell you phone service or satellite TV, Radio Shack can hook you up. But, even if a nice DPDT switch is marked up 200%, that's only like a $2 profit, and near-minimum wage sales droids could be spending that time selling you America's Top 500 Channels.
Maybe they can use some of these robotics kits to build us a vending machine for useful stuff.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
OK, so I don't really know that for a fact, but I have a really hard time believing that the Mythbusters team woke up one day and decided to investigate a myth about the quality of Vex robotics kits.
Bite my shiny metal 7.2 volt battery ... I mean ass.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I live in Millburn.
Damn! I thought this said 'The Mythbusters Construct a Kill Bot' Now -that- would have been a story.
Specialization is for insects. -Heinlein
Connector pinouts are some big secret? Can't find any info via google so here you go, I used my beeper to trace the routes:
9 609b.pdf
Master and User are the two processors. You want to pick up the CPU specs here:
http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/3
"Serial" connector, pin 1 is on the right as you look into the connector.
1. User pin 60 "RJ2" through 10K resistor
2. Master pin 60 "RJ2" through 10K resistor
3. Master pin 60 "RJ2" through 1K resistor
4. Gnd
5. User pin 38 "RX1" - serial receive (TTL levels!) through 1K
6. User pin 37 "TX1" - serial transmit (TTL levels!)
Rx1 and Rx2 connectors, pin 1 is on the right as you look into the connector. Both are the same except for pin 2 which is the signal pin.
1. +5V
2. signal (see below)
3. Gnd
4. Gnd
Rx1 Signal pin goes to Master pin 57 "RB1"
Rx2 Signal pin goes to Master pin 43 "RC2" and also pin 56 "RB2" through a 1K resistor.
On the motor connectors, the signal is the pin closest to the "notch" on the connector. The middle one is +5V and the other is Gnd.
More info needed, what speed is the serial running at? What commands can we send it? How does one CPU talk to the other? How can we program the EEPROM on them? If I make my own cable, why can't I just download the software when your cost would be almost zero?
Why would the company want to not release this info and be so anal? It's not really that hard to ohm things out, sheesh! Give us better info!
Even with this info I will still be buying more motors and sensors, and I did by the kit, how else do you think I got your controller?
Yes, it's amusing that I found the part at teh Wal Mart next door to RS.
And now that you mention it, I do remember not too long ago being surprised that all of the discrete components like resistors, LEDs, RF connectors, etc all were moved into a set of drawers instead of being hung up on the walls like they used to be. Guess they needed more room for a few more cell phone providers and some junk computer accessories.
The factory needs a way to program the chips the first time. There are extra pins inside the case, if you remove the cover, you will find that there are extra .100 center sockets between the "interrupts" and "motors" sections.
With these pins you can completly re-program the Master and/or User CPU using a standard PIC programmer.
Between the "interrupts" "slot 1" and "motors" "slot 8" there are 12 pins, in a 4 X 3 configuration. I will number them as shown below for reference, but the only way you will be able to match these up is by checking for the pins that ohm out to +5V and Gnd. Another reference would be that the below pin 1 is the closest pin to the number "1" marking shown on the "interrupts" plastic cover, and the below pin 4 is closest to the number "8" marking shown on the "motors" plastic cover.
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12
1. Master pin 6 "RG1"
2. User pin 52 "PGC"
3. Gnd
4. Master pin 52 "PGC"
5. Master pin 7 "RG2"
6. User pin 47 "PGD"
7. +5V
8. Master pin 47 "PGD"
9. Gnd
10. User pin 9 "Vpp"
11. Unknown or N/C
12. Master pin 9 "Vpp"
> So long as that robot can fetch beer for you, any cost is well worth it.
Not only will the Vex robots fetch beer, but they will also pour for you as well.
http://www.vexlabs.com/vex-bottlebot.shtml
....
AFK, buying a Vex 'bot.