Need HELP: Missing CD for HITEC - ROBONOVA-I

[alejandrocerrano]

Hi, All.
I have received a ROBONOVA-I at University to work with it. I need to test it but I was informed that the motherboard is probably damaged (honestly, the information is not very clear and quite contradictory). More over this, the previous students who have worked with this robot have missed the CD and manual. I have found several Internet places with the manual. And I wonder if anyone of you can, please, share with me all the CD content, uploading it to some sharing files place.
Any help you can provide on this will be most appreciated!!
Thanks a lot in advance!!
AC.

[vmatos]

Hope you find the CD you're looking for. Unfortunately I can't find it too.

What's you goal with Robonova?

I just took a quick look at the Kit. Why don't you get an Arduino-like board for 24+ servos?
For instance Dagu Spider controller?

[alejandrocerrano]

Hi, VMatos.
Thanks for your email.
I am taking an Specialty on Embedded Systems, at University. My strongest skills are in C and C++, but at medium-high level programming.
Embedded Systems was always a pending subject for me. I am learning.
Well, my Thesis Director gave me a Robonova I, which is not working (seems some students damaged the motherboard some time ago).
So, I have 2 goals (as per my Thesis Director):
1. Having the Robonova walking again.
2. Having the Robonova processing images and "taking decisions" accordingly.
As I need to use University economic resources (this is a good practice to have students working in order way), I need to provide reasonable arguments before buying hardware, for instance.
1. So, for the first goal, the logical first step is to prove that the original motherboard is working / damaged.
Once proved, I have to suggest alternative motherboards (in case of damage) to replace it.
One alternative is buying the natural replacement for 3024 Mother, which is the 3024FX released by the same Korean manufacturer (HITEC provided the name of the real manufacturer to me; I contacted them, and they told me that 3024 mother and 3000 mother have been discontinued because they caused damages to the servos. Instead, they have release a FIX, the 3024FX, which is used by the Robonova II - Metal Fighter).
I appreciate your suggestion of Arduino-like for 24 servos and Dagu Spider also. Regarding Arduino, I suppose you are talking about some Arduino shield, which I did not know before your mention. I have also checked the Dagu Spider controller and it seems also a very good option.
BUT, look at this: as my Thesis would be related to Embedded Systems (not only Software, but full systems), the mother physical measures are also important. I received the instructions to choose a mother which can in some way "fit" in the robot; which can be physically supported by the Ronobova - I. Of course, I can implement something like a "backpack", so forth. But I cannot go beyond the "physical possibilities" of the humanoid. [This will make you laugh out loud...: as no student had picked up a project with 2 Intel Xeon Phi micros, I have suggested originally to create a centaur (to join the Robonova project with the Xeon Phi one)... whose body would be the Xeon Phi... Of course, I did not know the exactly measures of a Xeon Phi, but I wanted to test the teraflops intercommunication between the Robot (with one Xeon) with another external one..... The Thesis Director said: "the centaur is out of scope of an humanoid which has to walk just as a human..." ]
2. The second goal will be find another mother for video processing. Of course, Atmel 128 would not be possible.
I was suggested to implement one scenario like the following:
- Having a Raspberry Pi as core mother, which will provide the functionality of processing video.
- Also, regarding servos (RPi is not useful to control several servos), there is an external RPi shield capable to control many servos without overloading the RPi and just being commanded by 2 pins of the RPi). Other alternative, should be having the core RPi controlling a dedicated mother for servos like the 3024FX, the Arduino shield you have mentioned, Dagu Spider controller, etc., receiving commands from the RPi to process a direct control the Robot movements. Of course, if they can interact in proper way.
Well, as you can see, I am just "a beginner in the beginnings" but I am very happy with this project and hope to learn a lot from it!!
Any kind of suggestions will be very welcome!!
Thanks and regards.
AC.

[vmatos]

Looks like a cool project!

I would use an Arduino mini + custom veroboard shield for servos and power + some sensors, communicating with Raspberry PI + camera.

Just watch out, time is short and these kind of projects take lots of time.

Good luck!

[Bullit]

You can get RoboBasic here
https://github.com/ozfiddler/sc-robonova-archive

[limor]

amazing find on Github!

[ozfiddler]

Glad it was useful!

I've actually just dusted off my Robonova and started playing with it again. Let me know if you need anything else, though I think I put almost everything I had on github.

Video processing - wow. That's something I dreamed of but never attempted.