A recent project I’ve had a lot of fun with involves using off-the-shelf components and some good old-fashioned software development.
It started out with my work at Chumby.com on the Flash Lite player. I needed to explore using a Flash movie for robotic control via RS-232. The outcome is what I have here.
Ingredients:
- Chumby. Cost: $180, shipping included. Available from chumby.com (I work for chumby.com btw)
- iRobot Create. Cost: $130 plus shipping from irobot.com, includes the serial cable. You’ll also need a rechargeable battery ($59) and charger (either $69 for the home base charger or $35 for the 12-hour brick charger). You can shell out $230 for the create, command and charge package, which will also include the ATMel-based command module (which you don’t need for this project but can be used for other robot projects). Total cost will be $230 minimum.
- USB serial cable. Cost: $15-20 from Fry’s. The Q-stor adapter is one of the cheaper ones they stock and is $20 – there used to be a $15 GQ USB serial cable that also works. Any USB serial adapter that uses the pl2303 driver in linux will work.
- 9.6v rechargeable battery for the Chumby. You can get a 1200mah Ni-cad battery pack from Fry’s used for R/C cars for about $15 (with charger, $17). You’ll need to connect it to the 9V battery connector on the Chumby, which is accessible through the velcro opening on the bottom of the chumby. You’ll need to do a little cut and crimp to splice a 9V battery connector onto the battery pack. Remember that the final result needs to have the same polarity as a battery, which means the color-coded red and black wires may be opposite from the wires on the 9.6v battery pack. Check the polarity of the final result to make sure it comes out the same as a regular 9V battery:
That’s it for the hardware components. The iRobot Create has a DB-25 connector in the cargo bay with a lot of potential for expansion. The next post will cover putting it together and doing some basic tests.