Nipperbou - Robotics Resources
Development Resources For Experimental And Personal Robots

This web page is intended to provide the amateur robot designer with a valuable set of tools and information to aid in design, development, and deployment of personal robots. Whether the robot is intended to make toast, paint your house, or just look cool, these sources should prove helpful.
The Nipperbou Personal Robotics Development Resources Page

Hobby Robots

Robotics Resources

PIC Microcontroller
Sonar Sensor
This page was compiled by Owen R Matthews, Copyright 2007, All Rights Reserved. Email Owen at webmaster@gmail.com
When building a robot you must remember to separate the major system components. Each computer controlled machine we call a robot is divided into computer hardware, software, and machine. The computer can be PC-based, a single board computer, or a purpose-built controller system designed around an 8-bit or 16-bit microcontroller.

Programming your robot is probably the most important aspect of the development process. The genius is in the software, after all building machines is old hat. While robot controllers can be programmed in any language, most developers use BASIC, C, and Assembly. There are a whole host of free development tools available for the more common microcontroller families like the Intel x86, 8051, and PIC. Hi-Tech offers a very powerful C compiler that integrates into both the MPLAB IDE from Microchip as well as their own Hi-Tide IDE. All these applications are available absolutely free.

For robots to be able to interact with their environment, they need sensors and tools. Tools in this context include grippers and manipulator arms, while sensors are used to detect their surroundings. These include light, sonar, and radar units. A light sensor might be used to help a mobile robot follow a light rope, or a sonar sensor to detect an object in the way. Many industrial machines use laser sensors to position a cutting tool or gripper in an exact location. These sensors and tools can be thought of as I/O devices for the robot, much in the same way a computer uses periphial devices to communicate with the world.

A good place to start would be with a robot chassi kit with a small controller assembly like the Basic Stamp or Atom Bot-Board. From that point, functionality can be easily added by plugging in additional modules or assemblies. The author likes to start a robotics project by using a cheap R/C car as a starting point because most of the electronics servos, and motors are already in place, all that is needed to have a pretty nifty autonomous mobile robot is a controller board. If you like vehicles, you can always move up to airplanes or amateur rockets.

Programming Resources

A good place for new/used tech titles is Albris books:

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