If any of you are still around that is :)
I have been so busy these last few months, I've hardly had any opportunity
to work on my robots. At present I have 4 robots underway, Grassy - the
lawnmower, a vacbot, a biped and a new large domestic robot.
You may remember that I have changed the course of my mowbot and the
picture I have online is not representative. One of the decisions I made
was to treat the design like a commercial design, so I am having parts
made, and casting others in plastic. This can lead to long delays and other
headaches, but I'm certain it will lead to a better robot.
On the vacbot front I bought an old Superbug vacuum in a pawn shop and will
be modifying that for robotic control. There isn't much room inside when
the guts are stripped out. I'm hopeful that everything will fit in.
Those of you who read comp.robotics.misc regularly may have seen a message
regarding the use of studfinders for robotic obstacle detection. The basic
studfinder is a capacitive sensor which works well for non-metallic
obstacles. I have designed up a circuit which seems to work quite well and
I plan to use that in the vacuum nozzle.
I will post the circuit to the website when I've fully tested it.
I've had quite a few enquiries about the website as usual, plenty of people
asking for references to other sites and information in general. There are
a few university level mowbot projects going on that aren't online yet. I'm
hoping to get links to these projects soon. I also receive email from
people not on the list who are also building domestic robots of various
kinds, and I hope to have pictures and information from them on the site in
the near future.
I'd like to ask all members how their own projects are going?
Dave Everett
Domestic Droids Website
http://members.xoom.com/Mowbot/