For 'Brains' I am using a microcontroller based board designed for
robots called the 'HandyBoard'. This board is based on the Motorola
68HC11, has 32k of ram, a two line LCD and 4 (count them 4) H bridge
motor drivers! One nice thing is that you can program it using
Interactive C which available via free download or you can purchase an
upgrade. Even better is the extensive documentation to help you build
and program the board. You can purchase finished boards if you don't
want to build them. There are a couple choices for motor driver chips.
I use TI parts that are thermally protected and can drive 1 amp
motors. This
works out quite well for the gear motors I am using.
Check out:
http://el.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/projects/handy-board/index.html
My next step is to eliminate the caster. I went from a 1.5 inch to a 4
inch caster which works fine every where in my yard except when
climbing a small hump.
I plan to add two more gearmotors (surplus) to get
4 wheel drive.
Craig
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