What has become the New Zealand Personal Robotics Group began not long ago as a robotics project. So this is all pretty new. Below is a jumbled collection of some of my goals for the robotics project. Perhaps these goals will be shared by other people?
Meta-Goals
- Explore ideas: both the philosophical as well as experience-based research within the field of Artificial Intelligence, specifically as related to robotics
- Explore robotics hardware: the latest hobbiest-level sensors, motors, platforms, etc.
- Explore robotics software: where have we gone since Rodney Brooks’ 1985 ideas about subsumption architectures [Brooks 1985], odometry using PID controllers [PID]?
- Explore Self-Adaptive Software Systems
- Learn the Python programming language
Goals
- Try out various sensors and robot modules:
- Time of Flight (ToF) laser distance sensors
- infrared sensors (various distance ranges)
- ultrasonic sensors (via PiBorg’s Ultraborg)
- install Hall-effect motor encoders on the motor shafts, and write a Python-based PID motor controller
- analog-to-digital converters
- motion detector, to detect humans (and cats)
- a robot front bumper, modeled after David Anderson’s SR04 robot [SR04]
- motor control (via PiBorg’s Thunderborg)
- Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) and battery management (via PiJuice)
- Try out several robotic hardware platforms, for a low-cost, entry-level robot
- OSEPP Tank Kit
- Adafruit CRICKIT for Circuit Playground Express
- robot chassis available from Adafruit:
- Purple Aluminum Chassis for TT Motors – 2WD
- Mini Robot Rover Chassis Kit – 2WD with DC Motors
- Mini Round Robot Chassis Kit – 2WD with DC Motors
- Mini 3-Layer Round Robot Chassis Kit – 2WD with DC Motors
- motors:
- OSEPP 25mm motors (part of the Tank kit), with encoders
- yellow plastic motors
- continual-rotation micro servos
- Pololu micro gearmotors (1:298, with encoders)
- Try out several robotic processor platforms, for a low-cost, entry-level robot
- Raspberry Pi (Zero, Zero W)
- Circuit Playground Express
- Arduino
- other microcontrollers, e.g., Adafruit ItsyBitsy M4 Express
- Espruino WiFi (Javascript-based microcontroller)
- MicroBit?
- Explore use of I2C bus
Also see the page on Artificial Intelligence.