{"id":2753,"date":"2013-02-15T10:56:54","date_gmt":"2013-02-15T15:56:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/?p=2753"},"modified":"2013-02-15T10:56:54","modified_gmt":"2013-02-15T15:56:54","slug":"ikes-upgrades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/?p=2753","title":{"rendered":"Ike’s Upgrades"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Arduino<\/a>

Arduino Mega Board Mounted on Ike's Back<\/p><\/div>\n

I’ve\u00a0been working on Ike, my toy robot project for awhile now, and\u00a0I’ve\u00a0made some serious progress. What once started as a concept is starting to really show itself as a reality. The\u00a0Arduino\u00a0board I once imagined controlling this bot is now securely fastened to his back. All of the pins that supply output and input to drive this contraption have been mapped, and the real work of putting him back together is beginning.<\/p>\n

\"Motor<\/a>

Motor Control and Wire Distribution Board<\/p><\/div>\n

The Arduino board itself is quite impressive, but it\u2019s not a robot control solution in it\u2019s self. The board still requires the help of some additional circuits, and additional power. The motors that drive Ike\u2019s movements use 9 Volts, and both wires need current at different times. To solve this dilemma, I\u2019ve added H-Bridges, that convert the Arduino\u2019s output into 9 Volts on the required wire. This allows the motors to more forward or back as needed.<\/p>\n

Below the H-Bridge cluster is a series of connectors and resistors which will enable some of Ike\u2019s sensors, and under that, \u00a0the row of resistors is an area dedicated to powering Ike\u2019s new multi-colored eyes. He originally had only blue eyes, but now his eyes can range wildly from blue to red to white. The LEDs are also capable of green, but Ike\u2019s visor filters most of this light out, and it appears a dull gray instead.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/a>

New Wires on Ike's Foot<\/p><\/div>\n

In addition to Ike\u2019s new eyes, and control boards, I\u2019m re-wiring every component. In place of the thin wires that\u00a0didn’t\u00a0last, I\u2019m putting some seriously thick wire where needed. I found this ridiculously thick speaker wire which was meant to power those thumping stereos in the younger generation\u2019s cars. It should\u00a0definitely\u00a0do the trick, and last for quite a while as well.<\/p>\n

\"Testing<\/a>

Testing the Multi-color LED upgrade<\/p><\/div>\n

Here\u2019s an exploded view of sorts, which shows how the two boards will be stacked. The\u00a0Arduino\u00a0board will be about an inch below the new motor control board. The second board will be integrated into Ike\u2019s exoskeleton.\u00a0I’ve\u00a0had to cut a big chunk out of his backs plastic to mount this board.<\/p>\n

I’ve\u00a0been considering adding a third Raspberry PI board on top of the Motor control board\u2026\u2026 but, I better finish this stage first. If I do add this third board, Ike won\u2019t require a USB connection, and I should be able to add in Voice Recognition.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Rats Nest<\/p><\/div>\n

All in all,\u00a0I’ve\u00a0made a lot of progress. This robot is more then just a toy, it\u2019s a method to force myself to learn something\u00a0I’ve\u00a0always wanted to know: How to wire electronics.\u00a0I’ve\u00a0long ago mastered the methodology of computers, but electronics has always eluded me. It was always something I was planning to do in the future.<\/p>\n

The future is now, and\u00a0I’ve\u00a0learned far more then I thought I would from this project. \u00a0When I finished soldering Ike\u2019s motor control board, I realized I could use the same methods modified just a bit to build robots that build walls\u2026. Just as a car factory uses robots to build cars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve\u00a0been working on Ike, my toy robot project for awhile now, and\u00a0I’ve\u00a0made some serious progress. What once started as a concept is starting to really show itself as a reality. The\u00a0Arduino\u00a0board I once imagined controlling this bot is now securely … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[671,664],"tags":[668,672,674,673,669],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2753"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2762,"href":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753\/revisions\/2762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}