Robot Project Page. Hardware Hacks and experimentation.

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Hardware

When you talk to engineers about hardware, two different things come to mind. Some people think "hardware" means a mechanical device made of metal and plastic that you put stuff inside. Other people think "hardware" means electronic motors, micro-processors and power supplies. Well, everyone is right, and robots need both types of hardware, so if you are good with your hands, and like building things, robots will be a lot of fun for you.

I personally like designing small digital circuits (electronic hardware). I've never really felt comfortable with analog circuits, or even mechanical devices if you come right down to it. So small robots are the perfect choice for me. I particularly like laying out printed circuit boards. After a day of planning complex software projects, there's a very calming effect to solving a 3D puzzle of red and green copper traces. There are many "correct" solutions, but some are just more elegant than others. They are the solutions that I like.

It's even better now that the PCB production companies will provide their own PCB design software, and take board orders online. I particularly like [Express PCB] because they have a mini-board format that lets me design a 3.8"x2.5" board and get 3 samples for $58 in 3 days. Why even bother with a proto-board at those prices?

Anyway... check out the links below to see what I've been doing

BOB (Bot On a Board)
BOB is the ultimate in "Bare Bones" robotics. This small mobile robot has NO CHASSIS. That's right, everything is bolted directly to the Printed Circuit Board. That makes BOB one cheap son-of-a-robot. It also made him an interesting hardware design project. Follow along as I illustrate the design process that created BOB 1.0.
Variable-Speed Continuous-Rotation Servo Hack
People have been hacking the classic Radio Controlled Servo to turn it into a wheel drive for quite a while. The basic concept is that you remove any physical stops that prevent the servo horn from continuously rotating, and then you somehow disable the feedback pot. My first project was to see if I could come up with an alternative to this approache. I wanted to see if I could hack the Servo internals such that the robot would still think that it's controlling a servo, but that the servo itself would respond with a more linear range of speeds.