RobotShop is proud to announce the immediate availability of the DFRobotShop Rover, an Arduino-compatible robotic tracked platform. At an 89.99 USD price-tag, this is by far the most affordable, programmable mobile robot in the market.

The DFRobotShop Rover is a versatile mobile robot tank based on the popular Arduino Duemilanove.  It incorporates all the Duemilanove features (since it uses a surface mount ATMega328),  including shield compatibility, and is supplemented with (1) an on-board DC step-up that allows it to be easily powered from small power sources such as AA batteries,  (2) a dual H-bridge DC-motor controller (L293B), and (3) an APC220 and Bluetooth serial interface connector for telemetry and radio control. As an addition it also features a temperature and light sensors that can be readily connected to analog inputs on the ATMega328 for immediate use. This Arduino-compatible platform rides on the popular Tamiya twin motor gearbox and the Tamiya track and wheel set.  This created a low-cost traction system that has been tested to carry over 2 kg without issues.

- Robotshop Blog

Let us know what would you like to do with this very cool Arduino tank.

Via RobotShop Blog.

Clinton Blackmore form the Southern Alberta Robotics Enthusiasts club put together some pretty neat software to control Lego NXT motors and sensors by using the Arduino microcontroller.

He is using the Mindsesors Multiplexer for NXT Motors coupled with an Arduino Compatible Seeeduino in order to control a small robot made from Lego NXT parts, read NXT encoders, and more.  The code for the Arduino can be found in the NXT I2C Devices For Arduino Project Page.

The possibilities that this enables are almost endless.  Especially when considering that now Arduino Shields can be used in order to extend the capabilities of the Lego NXT parts.

Via RobotShop Blog.

While doing my morning reading, I came across this gem of a device. It’s a DB9 pin-compatible USB port. That means for every board you have that originally took a DB9-style serial port, you can now drop in this device and have USB access instead. Inside the connector is FTDI’s ubiquitous USB-to-serial converter chip. Too bad it’s taken so long for something like this to show up. I can recall about 5 years ago when just about every robotic kit needed a serial port instead of USB. Thankfully things have begun to change, but this could be a great add-on to any legacy boards you find around the house or lab.

You can read the datasheet here.

[Via Electronics-Lab]

Check out some of the new robots added to RobotBox. For those that don’t know, RobotBox is a new community website for robot builders to show off their projects and inspire other builders. You can add your robot here.

RobotBox user jbot added a nifty blog post today about using his robot to paint with light. Inspired by images of Roomba’s with LEDs, he added a set of LEDs to his robot, PlexiBot and took some long exposure photos as PlexiBot traveled around. The results are quite beautiful.