Lessons Menu:

• Lesson 1 – Getting Started
• Lesson 2 - Choosing a Robotic Platform
• Lesson 3 - Making Sense of Actuators
• Lesson 4 - Understanding Microcontrollers
• Lesson 5 - Choosing a Motor Controller
• Lesson 6 – Controlling your Robot
• Lesson 7 - Using Sensors
• Lesson 8 - Getting the Right Tools
• Lesson 9 - Assembling a Robot
• Lesson 10 - Programming a Robot

Getting Started

Welcome to the first installment of the Grand RobotShop Tutorial, a series of 10 lessons that will teach you how to make your own robot. This tutorial is aimed at anybody willing to get started in robotics and have a basic understanding of terms such as “voltage”, “current”, “motor”, and “sensors”. Although this might seem pretty basic, even people with previous robot building experience might find useful information regarding the general method of building a robot.

What is a robot?

There are many definitions of robot and no real consensus has been attained so far. We loosely define a robot as follows:

Robot: An electromechanical device which is capable of reacting in some way to its environment, and take autonomous decisions or actions in order to achieve a specific task.

This means that a toaster, a lamp, or a car  would not be considered as robots since they have no way of perceiving their environment. On the other hand, a vacuum cleaner that can navigate around a room, or a solar panel that seeks the sun, can be considered as a robotic system.

It is also important to note that the  “robots” featured in Robot Wars for instance or any solely remote controlled device would not fall under this definition and would be closer to a more complex remote controlled car.

Although this definition is quite general, it might need to evolve in the future in order to keep up with the latest advancement in the field. In order to get a sens of how robotics is rapidly growing, we suggest you take a look at the RobotShop History of Robotics.

Let’s get started

This series of tutorials is intended to guide you through the steps of building a complete mobile robot.

There are 10 lessons that will be released in the following 10 weeks.  Each lesson guides you through one step of making a general-purpose mobile robot.  This will enable you to build your very own mobile robot in order to perform a task of your choice. Each lesson will be illustrated with an example from RobotShop experience in producing the RobotShop Rover. The lessons are intended to be read one after the other and build upon the information gained.

STEP 1

The first step is to determine what your robot should do (i.e. what is its purpose in life). Robots can be used in almost any situation and are primarily intended to help humans in some way. If you are unsure of what you want your robot to do or simply want to concentrate your efforts on specific tasks, here are some ideas:

Knowledge & Learning

In order to build increasingly complex robots, most professionals and hobbyists use knowledge they have acquired when building previous robots. Instead of building one robot, you can learn how to use individual components with the objective of building your own “knowledge library” to use to undertake a larger, more complex design in the future.

Amusement & Companionship

Building a robot is in and of itself is fun and exciting. Robotics incorporates aspects of many disciplines including engineering (mechanical, electrical, computer), sciences (mathematics and physics) and arts (aesthetics) and users are free to use their imagination. Amusing others with your creations (especially if they are user-friendly and interactive) helps others to become interested in the field.

Competitions & Contests

Competitions give the project design guidelines and a due date. They also put your robot against others in the same class and test your design and construction skills. Although many competitions are specifically for students (elementary to university), there also exist open competitions where adults and professionals alike can compete.

Autonomous life form

Humans are natural creators and innovators. The next great innovation will be to develop a fully autonomous life form that rivals or surpasses ourselves in ability and perhaps creativity. This goal is still being accomplished in small steps by individuals, research organizations and professionals.

Domestic or Professional tasks

Domestic robots help liberate people from unpleasant or dangerous tasks and give them more liberty and security. Professional and Service Robots are used in a variety of applications at work, in public, in hazardous environments, in locations such as deep-sea, battlefields and space, just to name a few. In addition to the service areas such as cleaning, surveillance, inspection and maintenance, we utilize these robots where manual task execution is dangerous, impossible or unacceptable.  Professional and Service Robots are more capable, rugged and often more expensive than domestic robots and are ideally suited for professional and/or commercial use.

Security and Surveillance

Most mobile robots are used to venture into areas where humans either should not or cannot go. Robots of various sizes (either remote controlled, semi-autonomous or fully autonomous) are an ideal choice for these tasks.

Practical Example

We anticipate that most of you following this guide have the objective of building a robot for learning and knowledge, but also for sheer fun; though many will have a specific idea or project they want to materialize.

The last major consideration is budget. It is difficult to know exactly what people have in mind when they build their first robot; one might already want to build an autonomous snow removal robot, while another simply wants to make an intelligent clock. A simple programmable mobile robot might cost about $100 while a more complex can be several thousands of dollars.

In this exercise, we have chosen to make a mobile platform in order to get an understanding of motors, sensors, microcontrollers and programming, and to include a variety of sensors. We’ll keep the budget to about $200 to $300 since we want it to be fairly complete.

For further information on learning how to make a robot, please visit the RobotShop Learning Center. Visit the RobotShop Community Forum in order to seek assistance in building robots, showcase your projects or simply hang-out with other fellow roboticists.

Do not miss the new up-to-date and detailed How to Build a Robot – Grand Tutorial Series.

The following article will show you how to build a simple robot, called “The Beetle Robot”, created by Jerome Demers. It’s great for beginners and easy to do.

This is the Beetle Robot v. 3 you are going to build:

Before starting, I suggest you to read the complete tutorials. This will greatly lower the chances of you making a mistake.

Tools Needed:

• soldering iron  ( here’s a helpful tutorial on soldering )
• electronic solder
• diagonal cutter
• Mini glue gun

Components for the robot

• 2x – small 1.5 Volts motors
• 2x – small paperclips
• 2x – big paperclips
• 2x – batteries AAA or AA
• 1x – battery holder AAA or AA
• 1x – 2 cm of heat shrink
• 1x – wooden pearl  (for the caster)
• 1x – meter of electric wire
• 2x – Sub-mini lever SPDT switches
  

(more…)

This article lists some ideas for starting a simple robot. A good read for beginners. Do not miss the new up-to-date and detailed How to Build a Robot – Grand Tutorial Series.

If you like this article, check out this. How to Build A Simple Robot, The Beetle Robot. This is the first of a multi-part series on how to build a simple robot. I will not be covering a lot of theory but instead will cover the nuts and bolts of building a robot. In this first instalment I will cover some of the different options in building this robot. Platform: You have several options for the base material.

1. Wood Depending on the size of your robot plywood may be a good choice it is inexpensive or free and easy to work with simple tools. You can get 1/4″ and 3/8″ plywood at Hardware, Home Improvement, Craft, or Hobby stores. A good place to look for free material is at a Cabinet shop they have lots of scrap too small for their use but perfect for a small robot.
2. Aluminium Light weight and moderately easy to work can also be found at Hardware, Home Improvement, Craft, or Hobby stores. You should always be very cautious when working with aluminum as edges can be very sharp and should be sanded or filed to round the edges.
3. Plastics Acrylic or Plexiglas are both easy to work and can also be found at Hardware, Home Improvement, Craft, or Hobby stores. High-speed tools should not be used, as they will melt the plastic. When cutting or drilling use low speeds.
4. Old CD’s These can be easy to find most people get them in the mail from AOL or Earthlink instead of throwing them away you can use them to make a robot. They can be a little on the brittle side so go easy when you do any cutting or drilling. I will be using Plexiglas from my local home center but you can use whatever material you want.

Motors:

1. Servos You can use servos for easy to get gear motors. Hobby shops will usually carry several sizes and brands. You will need to modify them for use there are many sites on the net with different methods; the one I like is detailed at the PARTS website. Servos already have all of the control circuitry built in and are easy to control they have 3 wires signal, +, and ground by pulsing the signal line you can go forward, stop, or backward. Servos are probably the easiest and cheapest way to go but may not be the best for you.
2. Gear motors These are available from surplus stores or hobby shops some people modify servos and remove the electronics to use them as gear motors. Gear motors will require control circuitry normally an H-bridge to allow forward and reverse motion and in some cases braking. Gear motors can give the greatest flexibility but at a higher cost compared to servos. Another source for gear motors is the toy section of your locale department store. What you want are the radio control toys that have differential steering, meaning they have a separate motor for each side. To turn left they go forward on the right motor and turn off the left motor and do the opposite to turn right. The really good cars will turn right by going backward on the right motor and forward on the left this will allow a vehicle to almost turn on a dime. If you use gear motors you will need to devise a method to mount the wheels I will be using a toy for my example.

(more…)