George Frick

Work has begun on my third Arduino Robot. I decided that after some comments I read in various forums, that making a line following robot would probably be a proper increase in challenge. With research in hand, I placed my orders for parts and began looking into creating a test track. Here are the goals for Arduino Robot 3 - Line Following Tank: Conform to Robo Games Line Following Rules (2010)   Use only a single sensor. Robot should move in a smooth motion (no twitching about the line) I have begun the physical build, but I'm still looking into a 'practice arena'; I may end up taping together printer paper... Full report, code and video upon completion (so check back here). Edit: The reason for the single sensor goal is because someone trying to do similar with a Lego robotics set would only have one sensor. I do not want to be putting more money/hardware into any of the robots. They should be a challenge; and with my programming background I think that even two s

My second robot was a bit more complex and ended up taking twice as long to build as originally intended. The budget changed, the designed changed, and my understanding of Robotics in general changed. The second robot is an attempt to make an obstacle avoidance robot that isn't overly simple. I will be outlining the goals, budget, build and code for Wandering Tank. The goals for Wandering Tank were simple: Should be able to scan an area in front of itself. Should be able to avoid not only walls, but obstacles. Avoid random decision making; the robot should use information when avoiding. Wandering tank meets these goals, and also looks pretty cool doing it. The code for the robot will show how the third goal is met and the other two will be obvious in the video. The budget for Wandering Tank was quite cheap. Since I started with Robot 1, the only additional cost for Wandering was the sensor and the servo. Robot 1 ($98.00) Sensor - Digital Distance Sensor 10cm $6.95 + $2.00

Work has been coming along well on the development of the second version of Arduino Robot. There have been multiple set backs; the biggest of which is my purchase of a continuous rotation servo instead of a normal one. Otherwise the bot is constructed and mostly works in tests. The goals for Robot 2 were a step up from Robot 1: Ability to continually scan in front of itself. Ability to back and turn to avoid obstacles. Smoother movement. Basically Robot 2 is a wandering avoidance robot; called Arduino Robot 2 - Wandering Tank. For this to work, I needed some type of affordable sensor to place at the front of the robot; and from there the ability to look around with it. My solution was to mount a sensor on a servo. The servo would be used to sweep across a selected field of vision looking for possible collisions. So Wandering Tank has to do the following: Move Forward Scan left to right Move backwards while object detected Turn after object no longer detected  Repeat  Becaus