-JANUARY 2009-
- Cortex-M3
Applications using Stellaris MCUs
- A Prototype Thermostat using Visual Design Tools
- Trinity College Fire Fighting Home Robot Contest
Sean Donnelly,
Publisher--Circuit Cellar
As we near Circuit Cellar’s Robotics print magazine issue and prepare for the Trinity College Robot Fire Fighting contest [http://www.trincoll.edu/events/robot/] held in our backyard every April, I get excited about the projects I’ll get to see in action. But I’m not talking about the smash-n-break type of action often associated with robot games so prevalent nowadays. No offense, I like to see servo-enabled blade vs. armor matchups as much as the next guy. But I’m more impressed with action that solves challenges in the real world… and even more impressed when this action is autonomous, as is the case with the Trinity event.
Although we’re looking ahead,
it’s also helpful to review projects you may have missed. If you like sensors,
gears, and servos, you should check out these projects.
Vertical Plotter System
by Miguel Sanchez
The full article appeared in Circuit Cellar #212. Miguel explains how to build a
vertical plotter system that can draw on canvas with a pencil or charcoal
stick. The compact, portable system consists of a pen holder hanging from
pulleys on two stepper motors. In his article, he describes the entire process,
from hardware development to programming the system. -Download the article PDF-
Balancing
Two-Wheel Scooter
By Reinhold Pieper
This low-cost balancing scooter can carry 90 kg at a speed of 15 km per
hour over a distance of 10 km. An ATmega32 handles all of the signal processing
for the electric scooter. Download the project details at http://www.circuitcellar.com/avr2006/winners/DE/DE_Entries/AT3329.zip
Inertial Rolling Robot
by Jeff Bingham
& Lee Magnusson
This article is from Circuit Cellar #200. Jeff and Lee’s H8/3664-based rolling robot is capable of inertial movement. A DC electric motor is attached to a pendulum and suspended inside an inflated ball, which provides the driving force.
Read the article now: http://www.circuitcellar.com/archives/viewable/Bingham200/13.html
Microphone Array
Robot Sensor
By Henry Pfister
The innovative Mobile Acoustic Array Robot Sensor features an array of three equally spaced audio microphones mounted in a triangular plane. The ATmega16-based system detects a sound source direction for use in navigation, location, and line-of-sight sensor pointing.
Download the project files from http://www.circuitcellar.com/avr2006/winners/DE/DE_Entries/AT2931.zip
Robot Localization
and Control
by Ethan
Leland, Kipp Bradford, & Odest Chadwicke Jenkins
This team shows
you how to use wireless nodes to simultaneously localize and control a WowWee
Robosapien humanoid robot. The ZigBee nodes’ outputs mimic the control signals.
A simple GUI makes controlling the robot a cinch.
Download this
article at http://www.circuitcellar.com/library/print/0306/Leland-188/Leland-188.pdf
EQ Interactive
Think You Have a Great EQ Challenge of Your Own?
E-mail your best EQ question and
answer to eq@circuitcellar.com. The best EQs will be published by
Circuit Cellar. Authors of the top four EQ picks will receive an Atmel
In-Circuit Emulator mk-II.* All published EQs will earn the author a
Certificate of Appreciation from Circuit Cellar.
Problem:
What is the following circuit?
Solution: The circuit is one way to create a buck/boost regulator using a single coil. When the input voltage is less than the desired output voltage, switch #1 is held closed and switch #2 is operated as in the boost regulator described previously. When the input voltage is higher than the desired output voltage, switch #2 is held open and switch #1 is operated as a buck regulator.
*EQ award of Atmel In-Circuit Emulator mk-II: recipient responsible for any applicable duties and taxes. No cash alternative. Awards will be made at sole discretion of Circuit Cellar editorial staff. By submitting an EQ Q&A, Circuit Cellar is granted the right to publish the submitted material and the author’s name. Submissions must be original (not published in print or online previously). Offer valid through 3/31/09.
Cortex-M3 Applications Using Stellaris MCUs
 |
Click the cover for a PDF compilation of some of the best design projects using Cortex-M3 that have appeared in Circuit Cellar. |
A Prototype Thermostat using Visual
Design Tools
A bonus chapter download by Oliver Bailey
(Note: If you wish to purchase the mixed
signal board and kit that includes all of the components, project files, and a
book on using this mixed signal board, visit www.time-lines.com/cc0901.htm
for information and special pricing.)
“When Embedded Systems Desktop Integration was first written, the source code for all the prototypes had to be written manually. The exception was HIDMAKER which generated the USB code based on a series of questions. Since that text was written over three years ago, many advances have been made in embedded development tools. This bonus chapter will implement the thermostat design using a visual design environment which will almost eliminate the need for writing code.
-Click here to download a PDF of this bonus chapter.-
Trinity College Fire Fighting Home Robot
Contest
By Jesse Smolin, Circuit Cellar
This spring, dozens of autonomous robots
will crawl, spin, and walk all over Trinity College’s Oosting Gymnasiusm in
Hartford, Conn., as they perform varied tasks from extinguishing fires in homes
to delivering food to the disabled during the sixteenth annual Trinity College
Fire Fighting Home Robot Contest.
“They are really quite sophisticated and
really amazing to watch. It’s almost like a three-ring circus,” said Michele
Jacklin, the director of media relations at Trinity College.
The contest, which will be held April 4 and
5, will feature approximately 160 teams, from as far as Israel, Indonesia,
Portugal, and China, competing to see whose autonomous computer-controlled
robot can navigate through a maze resembling the floor plan of a house, locate
a burning candle, and extinguish it, in the shortest amount of time, said David
Ahlgren, the director and host of the contest.
In addition to the traditional firefighting
event, the robots will face a new challenge called “House on Fire.” Teams will
have 2 minutes to extinguish a fire that has engulfed a model home with a
garage, a car, and a swimming pool. The robots will have to use the water from
the pool to put out the flames.
The weekend will not just be about putting
our fires. Ahlgren said he wants the contest to find solutions to other
problems that may arise around the house. A new event, designed with the help
of the Connecticut Council on Developmental Disabilities, will ask robots to
locate and retrieve a plate of food from a refrigerator shelf and deliver it to
a disabled person’s bedside. The simulation is designed to solve a real-life
problem where a disabled person is trapped at home and their aid cannot get to
them (i.e., during a bad storm).
“It was a real application where robots could
possibly make a difference. Eventually someone will build a robot that does
these things,” Ahlgren said.
The refrigerator shelf will have three LEDs
and the plate, which will have its own indicator, will be lined up with the
middle LED. The robot will have to light up the LEDs to know where the plate
is.
The contest was not always this popular.
When Ahlgren became involved with the contest in 1995, about 20 teams
participated. But, it quickly became more popular, due in part to Ahlgren’s
promotion of it at various engineering education conferences around the
country.
“We would talk it up and it just grew very
rapidly,” Ahlgren said.
Dick Mendelssohn, a former professor at
Trinity College, began the contest in 1993 at the Connecticut Science Museum.
The contest found a permanent home at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. Over the
years, the contest has grown to encompass several other events including a
poster contest, where teams may create a poster describing how they built their
robot, and the Olympiad test, a written theoretical test. Ahlgren said bringing
the contest to Trinity made sense because it is a great school with a good
engineering department.
“The firefighting competition is one of
Trinity College’s premier events. It draws teams of robot experts and
competitors from around the world,” Jacklin said.
In 1998 the contest gained international
recognition when an Israeli team joined the contest after seeing the contest’s
web site. Today, many Israeli students take it seriously because top finishers
may earn scholarships to Technion, Israel Institute of Technology.
The contest’s accessibility may be a reason
for its popularity. It is a low-cost public competition that has four divisions
that cover all ages and levels of skill.
“It doesn’t cost $30,000 or require
30-person teams and it strikes kind of an invention chord in peoples’ minds,”
Ahlgren said.
For more information about the contest, go
to http://www.trincoll.edu/events/robot/. Registration opens at midnight on Feb. 1.