i-SOBOT Controller Idea

[Humanoido]

This is an idea sparked from the comment by Wintermute regarding the Picotux. A good hack could be accomplished with the Parallax Basic Stamp 2px microcontroller board. I wrote a program using this board to receive IR pulses from a common hand held controller with the SONY standard and control the Parallax Penguin biped robot. It would be possible to program the board's sensor to transmit new code to i-SOBOT, making it programmable by the tiny board, easily located on the back side. Full scale programs could be uploaded to the board by computer and the free Parallax Editor, for autonomous functioning. A small but comprehensive i-SOBOT operating system could be created in PBASIC having all the functions found in the i-SOBOT Action Table, inclusive of the Easter Egg moves.

Another plus from this approach is the Basic Stamp 2px, Penguin version, has built in sensors, such as a directional compass, IR transmitter, IR receivers, light level detectors, segment display, peizo speaker, two ports for miniature servos, and a port for a plug-in ultrasonic distance sensor.

humanoido

[tom_chang79]

I love your idea but the biggest problem is that the codes in the IR remote are quite high level. You can only program it with the gaits that are already store in there. For autonomous mode, it would be pretty cool to see the isobot wander around, but for me, I was thinking of doing more low-level modifications such as the gait for the walking so the little bot doesn't have to walk on hard smooth surface all the time, perhaps even traverse over my mouse pad.

The IR approach would be a great idea to make the darn thing autonomous, with sensors interfacing with the parallax board. Perhaps a "back pack" type of dealie?