TriBot Test Code

I've writtten some test code for the Tribot (uploaded to the repository). It's just basic test code in a class with a main method, nothing special at the moment.

For the Ultrasonic sensor we have an output to the screen based on readings taken from the surrounding environment.

For the Touch sensor, whilst the sensor is pressed again an output to the screen and same for the colour sensor whilst a reading can be detected an output is displayed to the LCD screen on the brick.

For the motors, the results are physically visible so it's a combination of forward and backwards movement with output to the screen.

The touch, light and motors work fine but I'm a bit worried as the Ultrasonic sensor doesn't seem to be doing much. Maybe it's a coding or LeJos problem. I might use the mindstorms software to test it. I hope it's not faulty  :( I don't want to fork out £22 for a new one.

Tribot

I spent 5 hours yesterday building the tribot (picture below). It was pretty fiddly to do, there are 2 wheels at the front and 1 small one at the back. As well as that this robot has 3 sensors on it too. The touch sensor, which has a mechanism build around it and a colour sensor on top both of which can be used for object detection. I have also put a sonar sensor on top (looks a bit Johnny 5ish ;-)).

It looks pretty cool, but I'm not entirely convinced about the stability of this bot. I liked the robustness of the old 4 wheel chassis I made (but that was very basic and lacking functionality other than movement) however I haven't programmed the robot as of yet nor tested it so we shall see (I will keep you posted).

 

LeJos Robotics Repository...

...has been created using google code and can be viewed here . If anyone would like to be added to the project, please let me know.

The Beginning of a Tweetbot

Although in terms of setting up LeJos on mac osx 10.4 has been very pain staking today, we did manage to get the tweet bot up and running in it's basic form (although no interaction with twitter as of yet).

We have created a lego tweetbot code repository using google code and created twitter account for Tweetbot (if you wish to follow). We also wrote some basic code for communication. A good start to the project (if you discount silly problems hardware and LeJos related).

Here are the two bots that will be part of the tweetbot project

NXT Bot: Building the Chassis

I've just spent the past 2 hours building the chassis for my robot. I still need to put LeJos on my laptop and then onto the NXT block before I can start programming it. If I get the chance, I will do that tomorrow.

Here is the progress:

 

 

 

Next week I will be enhancing it in terms of a claw for gripping and then putting sensors on for object detection.

It has been a very productive robotics day :D

LeJos Setup

Courtesy of Mike Brook (aka @FrozenKnight on twitter)

Helpful links for getting LEJOS setup with your NXT brick.

Make sure you download all the latest updates from the Lego Mindstorms Tech Support pages (get the 1.02 version driver, and the fix for Mac OSX 10.5+) http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/support/files/Driver.aspx

How to install LEJOS onto Mac running OSX 'Snow Leopard' http://lejos.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1696&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Getting NetBeans setup to compile and upload your programs http://lejos.sourceforge.net/nxt/nxj/tutorial/Preliminaries/CompileAndRun.htm

Read this post if you have problems with compile and upload http://lejos.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1696&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15