UgBot – Bluetooth / Arduino Differential Wheeled Robot

 Code, Stuff I Made  1 Response »
Aug 262012
 


This is UgBot: The ugliest electronic mess since Superman III.

UgBot technically isn’t a robot, just a remote controlled thing. It started as a test for my next robot project (to be called Dominar Rygel XVI)

I just had to work through a few simple ideas before I started on a more sophisticated platform and this is what I ended up with.

UgBot’s hardware is:
(1) Arduino Nano
(1) Bluetooth TTL Module
(2) Micro Servos (modified to continuous rotation)
(1) Breadboard (sawed in half)
(1) Battery Pack (4)AAA
Poweraide and Coke Caps for wheels
Lots of jumpers

and the software is:
-Arduino sketch with CmdMessenger, Servo, and SoftwareSerial libraries (software serial is so I don’t have to pull the TX/RX pins for debugging. It’s a big help)
-Android app which I basically stole from this guy Eirik Taylor’s project. I changed the UI and the serial commands but the rest is pretty much his code. I’m so lazy I didn’t even change the name so the app is still called BluCar from his project.

I absolve myself of the theft since he admits that he took most of the code from the BlueTooth Chat example in the Android SDK.

Here’s the Android and Arduino Code

Here’s updated android code (w/ multitouch enabled) Code

Blender Arduino LED Control

 3D, Code, LEDs, Stuff I Made  17 Responses »
Aug 202012
 

I guess I’ve been using Blender for so much for so long that I tend to look for ‘Blender-like’ controls in a/v projects. So inevitably when I started working with LED strips I immediately tried to weasel out of having to think through functions and loops in arduino code to create effects I could do intuitively in Blender.

So after a few bad UI attempts I thought – hey, wish I could just design a light sequence in Blender and run it with ALT-A. So that’s what I did.

On the arduino side it’s using the FastSPI and CmdMessenger libraries for LED and serial communications.

The Blender script just reads the diffuse color in r-g-b from each LED objects material and spits it out to the USB port. Getting the pyserial library hooked up in Blender wasn’t a breeze but the “sys.path.append” line should help anyone having the same issues I did.

Here’s the arduino code and Blender file

(Using Arduino Duemilanove 328 and LED strip with WS2801 chips)

EDIT:

Blendernation article (Thanks Bart!)

I forgot to mention I’m using Ubuntu so the sys.path.append thing wont work for windows, you’ll have to find the pyserial library solution elsewhere (there’s plenty of reference out there)

Also – the script runs on each frame change. Here’s how that works (WARNING: kinda hacky) http://funkboxing.com/wordpress/?p=236

QUESTION: For any API guru’s out there – currently this script opens and closes the serial port on each framechange. I know this is radically inefficient. Any ideas on how to keep the serial port open persistently but to close it when blender closes?

 

 

 

 

Big Thanks to Eirik Taylor

 Random  5 Responses »
Aug 182012
 

I have to post this because I don’t know any other way to get in touch with this tech super-hero to say thanks for his work.

Hey Eirik Taylor, thanks buddy, you’re an inspiration and an outstanding reference.

You gave me a huge head start with the Android code for your BT car. I’d still be struggling with the BT Chat example in the SDK if it weren’t for all well commented code.

http://uzzors2k.4hv.org/index.php?page=welcome

https://sites.google.com/site/uzzors2k/home

His website has a bunch of great projects and his documentation is awesome and he posts all his code.

Thanks again buddy, hope you read this and it makes you feel warm and fuzzy.

 

Arduino LED Backlighted Sign

 Code, LEDs, Stuff I Made  6 Responses »
Aug 162012
 

Here’s an Arduino LED backlighted sign I made.

Electronics are:
(1) Arduino Nano – $16
(1) Bluetooth TTL- $10
(23) Addressable LED Strip (SMD5050/WS2801) – $20

Then some foamcore, paint, and hot glue.

I’m using a android bluetooth terminal program to send serial commands to the arduino. Right now the program just calls ‘Modes’, which are different effects I hacked together in the arduino IDE. Later I’ll write a more versatile program so you can more directly control the LED’s with an Android app or something.

FYI – The Q is for Quixote Studios.