It works!

This evening I tested the proximity sensor. I placed it on the bread board and hooked it up on digital I/O 8. By adding a LED to be able to see if an object was detected, the circuit was complete...

So I altered the button example from the Arduino development enviroment to match the I/O pin 8, and uploaded the program...

And w000t! It works:

Parts arrived, first proximity sensor built...

Last week the parts ordered from Farnell arrived... I'm still waiting for the tracks from Tamiya to arrive, but today I already started on building the first sensor.

Using the schematic from the CAROLL website and the website from Kronos Robotics, I built the first proximity sensor:


And a view from the side:

Small overview of my working area:

All the important parts can de seen on the working area... The Arduino Duemillanove Color which will be the brains of the board, the shield which will hold the breadboard and wiring, a small breadboard with the motor control chip and the sensor. In the back there's my Weller soldering station, and the most important of all, a can of Dr. Pepper to keep me fresh :)

And now it's time to test the sensor and see if it works...

My First Roby :-)

The time has come to build my first robot, or well, at least try to get something moving :)

After seeing some video's at youtube, I ordered a Tamiya Bulldozer kit from dehobbysite.nl as a mechanical base for the bot.

On the website of Francesco De Comité, I found the designs for some cheap sensors, so I ordered a bunch of parts from farnell.com: IR diodes, IS471F sensors, LDRs, 100K trim resistors and a L293 motor driver.

The heart of My First Roby will be an Arduino board, the Arduino Duemilanove, and since I recently started distributing those myself, I didn't have to order that part :)

The idea will be a simple bot that will drive towards the light and won't drive into objects. Not a very original idea, but hey, it's a start...

Well, time to wait for the parts, and search for some time...