Friday, January 21, 2011

First post

Well, after a long (6+ months) hiatus away from robotics, it's time to get my rear in gear, in prepararation for RoboGames 2011. What's planned?

1. For starters, the return of Warchild, my hobby servo based Mech. He's getting a Solarbotics Freeduino for brains and Rennbotics servo shield for control this year. Xbee communication is new to the mix, over my unreliable Bluetooth connection in the past. All gun motors will be noise suppressed with a generous addition of capacitor filters.

2. The debut of Musa, my Bioloid-based kung fu combatant. This one is sporting an Arbotix robocontroller and Xbee communications as well.

3. Two new handheld controllers to pilot them both. For Musa, I will be using a recycled helicopter radio, gutted of all but the case and gimbals. Inside will be an Ardweeny and Xbee regulated module and as many buttons as I can fit till I run out of pins on the Ardweeny.

   The second controller will be a mech-style cockpit with Logitech Attack3 joystick and custom throttle with tons of blinky switches and xbee communication as well.

So, lots of work ahead, but it's going to be an exciting year! Stay tuned for pics, video and many updates!!!