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Bluetooth for Pokey

bot-thoughts's picture
Posted Mon, 04/12/2010 - 7:34pm by bot-thoughts
Related project: 
Pokey

Pokey is now equipped with a Bluetooth radio modem for telemetry and troubleshooting. I fabricated a simple breakout pcb to plug either a Sparkfun FTDI breakout or BlueSMiRF modem in so the bot can send data over serial to the PC.  Was playing around and set up remote control as well -- maybe I can use this to quickly gather sample data from the IR rangers while driving Pokey through the maze to get a better sense of what the sensors 'see'.

Comments

mcb1's picture

Nice bot. The wheels are now

by mcb1 - 04/26/2010 - 8:29am

Nice bot.

The wheels are now getting a bot common, so might need to look at dressing mine up......

I am very interested in the "amplified by a large flashlight reflector pointing in reverse (to facilitate easier navigation)", bit on Pokey.

Cheers

Mark

bot-thoughts's picture

Thanks :) Re: flashlight -- I

by bot-thoughts - 04/26/2010 - 2:38pm

Thanks :) Re: flashlight -- I took a lantern battery ($3.49 @ Home Depot), cut off the end of it. Then replaced the bulb with two IR LEDs acting like photodiodes.  The diameter of the flashlight reflector/lens is large enough that the light emitted from a candle of regulation height range would reach the LEDs.  And the nature of the reflector was such that it gathered additional light so the system could detect a candle at longer distances than the IR LEDs could all by themselves. However, I found the sensitivity wasn't quite enough for competition distances.  I'm having a lot better luck with the game boy camera. Am also going to try some phototransistors that are popular among the Trinity Firefighting competitors.

gallamine's picture

Are you too cheap or too

by gallamine - 04/26/2010 - 8:43pm

Are you too cheap or too proud to buy a UV-Tron? :-D Those things work amazingly well, but rolling your own solution certainly has its advantages.

bot-thoughts's picture

Too cheap, definitely.  :) 

by bot-thoughts - 04/26/2010 - 9:03pm

Too cheap, definitely.  :)  Let's see, $100? on a very specific-use item so I can enter a local comp?  Or.... $5 on a sensor that was passable?  Well, the UVtron would've worked better!  But... as it now stands -- $20 on a vision system that I can use to experiment with all kinds of uses and also learn about image processing... gee... hard choice :D :D

bot-thoughts's picture

Bluetooth was comparable per

by bot-thoughts - 04/13/2010 - 10:32pm

Bluetooth was comparable per unit (maybe cheaper, I don't know).  Mainly I got it because my laptop has bluetooth built in and I didn't want a dangling dongle. :)

gallamine's picture

Why did you choose Bluetooth

by gallamine - 04/13/2010 - 9:45pm

Why did you choose Bluetooth instead of Xbee? I think the Xbee units are quite a bit cheaper. Have you tried wireless programming? I'm still stuck on getting it to work with my Xbee units, like I talk about here.