{"id":1305,"date":"2019-09-20T11:23:23","date_gmt":"2019-09-20T16:23:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.protowrxs.com\/?page_id=1305"},"modified":"2019-09-20T11:24:32","modified_gmt":"2019-09-20T16:24:32","slug":"sbot","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.protowrxs.com\/index.php\/robotics\/sbot\/","title":{"rendered":"sBot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2>Like Spot but a Bot<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>August 2013\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2>Just a little bot&#8230;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Sbot\u009d came about from just wanting to make a small  little bot with some normal features like sonar and light tracking. Maybe  something like a little pet for TED the BiPed or similar. Something that I could  put on my desk to play with and that didn&#8217;t take up too much room.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"373\" src=\"https:\/\/www.protowrxs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/sbot3.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1306\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.protowrxs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/sbot3.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.protowrxs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/sbot3-300x224.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 85vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2>Best Plans&#8230;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I had originally planned on using one of the ATTiny 85&#8217;s I picked up  but on the cheap didn&#8217;t have much luck with driving the sonar on my first tries  so I decided to use one of the Arduino Pro Mini clones that I recently picked up  for under $6.37 each. Also originally I was going to use some of those super  small GM-15 gear head motors I picked up and used on the Possessed Mouse  bot and still may build another small bot  to use them. In the end I decided to try using some 9G servos converted to  continuous rotation instead. They are real overkill as the little thing has all  kinds of torque and can just about climb anything you throw at it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"&quot;Sbot&quot; The Pet Robot\" width=\"840\" height=\"473\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/aXMlrtWFjNo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2>Keeping it small&#8230;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"373\" src=\"https:\/\/www.protowrxs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/sbot2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1307\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.protowrxs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/sbot2.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.protowrxs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/sbot2-300x224.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 85vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The base platform is really just like TED&#8217;s head, a couple small square Radio Shack boards  with standoffs holding it apart. Sbot is a little different than TED in that I  angled the HC-SR04 sonar down up front as I thought the rear may sag a bit  depending what type of rear support I used but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just slightly pointing down  which is great for something so small and short. <br>With the servos converted to  continuous rotation I still needed a &#8216;wheel deal&#8217;\u009d. Remembering I used some  actual old wheel mouse wheels on the Possessed Mouse project and I had some left  over from that project that just wouldn&#8217;t work with the GM-15 motors. They were  a different design and required a lot more &#8216;cutting \/ drilling \/ slicing my  finger&#8217; work but they mated up pretty good once I got to that point. They are a  little wobbly from my lack of precision handy work but they function quite well.  They are also super sticky adding to the grip feature I mentioned above. I may  have to see just how steep Sbot can climb some time with those servo motors and  sticky tires. <br>I had also picked up some small 240 mah 3.7 LiPo batteries on  the cheap as well and figured they would be a good power source for a small bot  someday. While looking for a spot to mount them I noticed they fit pretty nicely  between the servo ears on the 9gs underneath so a bit of hot glue made that  permanent&#8230; well as permanent as hot glue can be at least. Not wanting the  batteries to BE the rear support I stuck on one of my little furniture sliders  and it leveled things out nicely. A scavenged mini single pole, double throw  switch from something unknown mounted up nice on the back end and an old mobile  phone battery connector was setup to allow charging without having to disconnect  anything. Switched ON the battery powers the bot, switched OFF it routes the  battery to the charging connector like a few other of my robots.<br>Well as they  say about best laid plans.. Since I stacked the lipo up to get 7.x volts, I could  never get them to charge right using the charger methods I have here so back to  the power design phase. Having had luck with the rechargeable 9v setups I cut  the lipos loose and replaced them with a 9v, charged it up and sBot was back in  business. Although the battery does make his butt look big. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"373\" src=\"https:\/\/www.protowrxs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/sbot1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1308\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.protowrxs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/sbot1.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.protowrxs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/sbot1-300x224.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 85vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>With the servos,  power, and sonar setup, I moved on to the main board&#8230; which was bit of a  challenge. I didn&#8217;t want a bunch of wires sticking out of the top for the  various connections but didn&#8217;t want to solder wires between the top and bottom  boards either. Looking back, if I were smarter, I would have added a header  connector and pins and designed the two to just sit on top of each other like an  Arduino Uno shield&#8230; but I&#8217;m not that smart. Besides, it&#8217;s hopefully going to  be rare that I pull Sbot apart anyhow. So the final solution was to put some  header pins on the BOTTOM side of the CPU board. This wasn&#8217;t nearly as easy as I  thought it might be. I ended up having to move the plastic on the header pins,  install them from the top and then solder \/ connect it all below. Fortunately  there were only four connections that needed to be mated, the two servos and the  trigger\/echo on the sonar along with the power connection which was done  slightly differently. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2>Making it pretty&#8230; or cool.. or something besides messy&#8230;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>With the top\/bottom connection worked out I approached the top board  with some aesthetics in mind. I wanted to let the CPU be the main exposed  \u00e2\u20ac\u0153brain\u00e2\u20ac\u009d looking thing and then add the needed components in some balanced  fashion. The Pro Mini is soldered to the board so the profile is low enough to  look good. For Sbot I needed a very small speaker and wanted to it up front.  Luckily the &#8216;extra parts&#8217;\u009d collection from Chris the Carpenter&#8217;s  WiiCam kit had a tiny speaker that was  perfect for Sbot. \u00a0It&#8217;s small and a little quite mounted like it is but gives  the little bot some sound features at least and kind of looks like a mouth\/nose  up front. It is connected to the CPU board through another header pin mounted  from the bottom and plugs in up front that kind of looks like a nose. <br>Wanting  some type of LED \/ Light output up front a couple small LEDs came to mind and  were mount pointing down. I used the long leads of the LEDs to loop back around  and kind of look like eyebrows up top. The needed resistors were then matched on  each side and connected up to the CPU. The LDR sensors then fit nicely under the  LED loops and were routed back on the board and their resistors matched up on  both sides as well. <br>I had already soldered on the programming header pin and  had originally planned on mounting the CPU with that in the back but sticking it  up front kind of gave Sbot the &#8216;sticky uppy hair&#8217; look so it stayed up front. I  may make a connector to plug in up there when not programming that looks more  like hair sticking out or around, no telling. Or maybe it can be used as a &#8216;hat  mount&#8217;\u009d? In any manner it&#8217;s a very handy location to hook up. I can use the  serial monitor that way as well during tuning or coding without having to hook  up another port. I am not using the DTR signal for programming but a quick  reset, with the button right on top, makes it easy to get new code into Sbot. So  although it looks a little messy up top, it&#8217;s not real &#8216;messy messy&#8217;.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Talk to  me!<\/strong><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the original concept of a pet for TED I wanted to add some IR  capabilities. I added a receiver at the back of the bot like a little stub tail  and an emitter at the front like a, well like a unicorn I guess but couldn&#8217;t  find a better place to put it. I setup some code to read IR commands and then  went to TED to send those commands, and quickly found out the IR library really  doesn&#8217;t work with a Baby O processor without maybe some major mods. So, TED can  tell sBot what to do, but actually sBot could boss TED around. Honestly I guess  that is how it is in the real world anyhow right? Our pets are really our boss.  \ud83d\ude42 <br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2>Future Tricks?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p> sBot can do a few tricks, none of them very good yet  but he&#8217;s working on it. Stuff like stay, wag, bark, turn around, look at the  light, etc are programmed in but aren&#8217;t quite up to performance levels yet. I  need to do more training, I mean coding to get things right and polished.<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Like Spot but a Bot August 2013 Just a little bot&#8230; Sbot\u009d came about from just wanting to make a small little bot with some normal features like sonar and light tracking. Maybe something like a little pet for TED the BiPed or similar. Something that I could put on my desk to play with &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.protowrxs.com\/index.php\/robotics\/sbot\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;sBot&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":19,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"spay_email":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.protowrxs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1305"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.protowrxs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.protowrxs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.protowrxs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.protowrxs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1305"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.protowrxs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1311,"href":"https:\/\/www.protowrxs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1305\/revisions\/1311"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.protowrxs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.protowrxs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.protowrxs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.protowrxs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}