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Introduction 1 About This Book 1 Conventions Used in This Book 1 What You''re Not to Read 2 Foolish Assumptions 2 How This Book Is Organized 3
Part I: Getting Started with Robotics 3
Part II: Programmable Robot Prep 4
Part III: Building a Programmable Robot 4
Part IV: Augmenting Your Programmable Robot 4
Part V: The
Part of Tens 5 Icons Used in This Book 5 Where to Go from Here 6
Part I: Getting Started with Robotics 7
Chapter 1: So, You Want to Build a Robot? 9 The Robotics Revolution 10 Where have we been? 10 Are we there yet? 10 Where are we going? 11 Robot Uses 12 Security 12 Surveillance and exploration 13 Human helper 14
Chapter 2: Plotting a Path 15 Starting with a Kit 15 Selecting a Robot Kit 16 Nonprogrammable kits 17 Programmable kits 21 Moving Up to Robot Construction Sets 24 Anatomy of a robot construction set 24 Grow, grow, and outgrow! 25 Building a Robot from Scratch 25 Choosing what to get off the shelf 25 Parts sources 27 Economics and Time Considerations 28 Start small 28 Haste makes waste 29 Don''t get stuck in a rut! 29 Reuse and recycle 29 Get testy with your robot 30 Get on the right path 30
Chapter 3: Building Your First Robot 31 Robot Kit to the Rescue 31 On Your Mark, Get Set 32 Making time 32 Your workspace 33 Tools and grunting noises 33 Precautions 34 It''s in the book 36 Let the Building Begin 36 Jumping ahead 36 Going nuts 37 Cutting up 37 The story of gears and motors 37 Batteries are last 37 Extra parts 38 Testing and Troubleshooting 38 The dead robot 39 Motor problems 39 Side stepping 40 Soccer Jr in Action 40 Soccer 40 Gathering balls 41 Shooting pool 41 Sumo without the bulk 42 Learning Your Robot Chops 42 Motors making my head spin 42 Grinding those gears 43 Cams, but not for the Web 44 Juicing it up with batteries 45 Baby Robot Steps 48
Part II: Programmable Robot Prep 49
Chapter 4: Setting Up Your Robot Workshop 51 Creating an Ideal Work Area 51 Getting Organized 53 Tool Time 54 Personal computer 54 Testing equipment 55 Power strips 59 Machining 60 CAD software 60 Testing your circuit board design 60 Integrated development environment 61 Device programmers 61 How to Solder 62 Soldering 101 62 Undoing solder mistakes 63 Soldering tips 64 How do you keep it so clean? 66 Anti-Static Considerations: Can''t Touch This! 66 Mr Owl, how many volts does it take ? 66 The honorable discharge 67 A Robot Library 68
Chapter 5: The Nuts and Bolts of Robot Building 71 Pieces and Parts 71 What''s It All Made Of? 72 Heavy metal 72 One word -- plastic 73 It was good enough for Pinocchio 73 Nuts and Bolts 74 Double standards 74 Don''t fall apart on me 74 Motors for Locomotion 75 The useful DC gear motor 75 The versatile RC servo 79 Making Sense of Sensors 82 Electronics Primer 83 Resistors resist 83 Take charge with capacitors 85 Cable, connectors, and wires 87 Semiconductors 88 Creating circuit boards 90 Power to the Robots 94 Series and parallel demystified 95 Bench DC power supply 95 Tethered power 97
Chapter 6: A Programming Primer 99 Software and Computers 99 Keep it modular 100 Programming: The low road 100 Programming: The high road 101 Programming quick-start 101 Anatomy of a Program 102 Comments 102 Declarations 103 Instructions 104 Sample program 104 Useful Code Snippets 105 Useful Subroutines 107 Starting a program 108 Backing away to the left 108 Sounding an alarm 109 Okay, I Programmed Now What? 110
Part III: Building a Programmable Robot 111
Chapter 7: Preparing to Build a Programmable Robot 113 Robot Components Overview 114 Looking at basic robot parts 114 Looking at ARobot''s components 116 Assembly Process Overview 117 Organizing and Prepping the Parts 118 Gathering your tools 119 Preparing the parts 119 To Paint or Not to Paint? 120 The rugged look 120 The snazzy look 121
Chapter 8: From Whiskers to Wheels 123 Starting with Whiskers 123 Attaching the Drive Motor 125 Dealing with Wheels 126 The encoder sensor 126 The front wheel axle 126 Rear steering alignment 129
Chapter 9: If I Only Had a Brain 133 Adding the Controller 133 Selecting just the right controller 134 Installing the controller board 135 Installing the controller 136 Connecting the battery cable 136 Connecting the body cable 138 Finishing Touches 138 Turning ARobot On 139
Chapter 10: Introducing Your Robot to Your Computer 141 Working with the Basic Stamp Editor 141 Installing the software 142 Opening the editor 142 Loading or creating a program 142 Downloading a program to ARobot 142 Troubleshooting downloading 145 Running the Built-In Programs 146 Testing the robot''s functions 146 Adjusting the steering 149 Wandering around with the Wander program 150 Troubleshooting 150 Tricky whiskers 151 Steering gone astray 151 Getting the drive motor right 152 Controller, this is the tower We have a problem 152 The dead robot 153
Part IV: Augmenting Your Programmable Robot 155
Chapter 11: Expanding Your Robot''s Universe 157 Adding Rear Whiskers 157 All about whiskers 158 Collecting the parts 159 Installing the whiskers 160 Controlling the whiskers 163 Adding an Expansion Board 165 Collecting the parts 167 Preparing the board 167 Installing the expansion board 168 Building a Motorized Head 172 Selecting a motor 173 Mounting the motor 174 Adding a perf board 175 Controlling the motor 175 Troubleshooting 177 Accessorizing 177 Wheel covers 178 Handles 178 Beefing up the payload capacity 179 Running lights 181 Clear dome 182 Rubber bumpers 183
Chapter 12: Making Your Robot See the Light 185 Making Sense of Light Sensors 185 The hardware
part 186 And the software
part 186 Pulling Together the Light-Sensing Hardware 187 Selecting the sensor 188 Testing the sensor before you commit 188 Planning and building the circuit 189 Interfacing to the controller 192 Writing the Software That Interprets the Hardware 195 Writing the low-level software 195 Hooking up with the high-level software 196 Troubleshooting the software 197 Putting Your Sensor to Work: Real-World Applications 198 Making your robot sleepy 198 Programming a light alarm 200 Positioning the light sensor 202 More Light Sensor Ideas 205 Improving direction sensing 206 Software filtering 206 Overdoing it 207
Chapter 13: Some Like It Hot 209 Sensational Temperature Sensors 209 Thermistors can take the heat 210 Semiconductors: Sensitive, three-legged creatures 211 Building the Temperature-Sensor System 212 Under the hood: Creating a temperature-sensor circuit 213 Collecting the parts 214 Installing the temperature sensor 215 Temperature sensor, meet the controller 215 Turning the switch 217 The Brains of the Beast: The Software 218 The driver at the lower level 218 Taking things to a higher level 219 Hot or cold: Testing the software 220 Making sense of the numbers 221 Troubleshooting temperature-sensor software 221 Turning Up the Heat: Real-World Applications 222 Your new hobby: Temperature logging 223 Danger: Temperature alarm 227 Robots that run hot and cold 229
Chapter 14: Halt! Who Goes There? 233 Detecting Motion: An Overview 233 Building the Motion-Detector System 235 Collecting the parts 235 Wired for motion 237 Testing the motion detector 240 Troubleshooting the motion-detector sensor 242 The assembly: Putting the sensor in place 243 The Brains of the Beast: The Software 244 Low-level code 245 High-level code 245 Troubleshooting 246 Real-World Applications 247 Doorway greeting 247 Pest alarm 250
Chapter 15: Yakety-Yak: Adding Speech to Your Robot 251 Straight Talk about Speech Technology 252 Electronic deflation to the rescue 252 The power of text-to-speech systems 253 Building a Speech System 255 Getting speech off-the-shelf 255 Collecting the parts 258 Wiring 258 Mounting the speech module 260 Testing 261 Troubleshooting 262 Creating Sound Software 263 Communicating with the sound module 263 The sound module command reference 264 Recording sound 266 Building Your Robot''s Vocabulary 268 Putting Speech to Work 268 Debugging 269 Navigation 269