Has anyone hacked a Sumobot kit yet and replaced the processor with mbed?
They have IR sensors to detect another robot and IR sensors to detect the white edge of the black Sumobot ring. Two servos for drive motors, easy to run with PWM and the battery pack. Could add more advanced sensors like Sonar and tilt. It is just like Sumo - first robot to push the other one out of the ring wins. The servos have already been hacked for continuous rotation to make low cost robot drive motors.
I think it is way past time to upgrade the old Basic Stamp technology processors many of them use. For example, the one below from Parallax that runs about US $150 ($20 cheaper in two pack kit). Would be nice if someone made a new PCB with mbed and used the other parts from the kit. I have been trying to talk some students here into doing it, but so far not much luck. It would be a fairly simple two sided PCB and you can look at the existing PCB below to see how to set it up.
We could have an mbed Sumobot contest!
Here is an image of the PCB to update and replace with mbed technology insertion. A schematic comes with the documentation. Mainly SIP pins and sockets for IR sensors and servos to connect to mbed pins and power hookups. Would not need a serial cable and might want to replace the protoboard area with an upper deck providing room for more advanced sensors. It uses a 4AA battery pack mounted low in the robot. The forward facing IR detectors plug into the row of SIP sockets at the top of the board and IR floor sensors and servos plug into SIP pins on the left. You might just solder those in, as I recall they often get knocked off. So the simple combat program moves around looks at IR sensors and rams the other robot when it sees it trying to push it out of the ring. When it sees the white floor ring with the downward facing IR sensors below the blade in front it backs away from the edge and turns to stay in the ring. There was a Sumobot contest at an embedded systems conference years ago and it was a lot of fun. They even have official rules and a weigh in at the start of each contest by the refs.
Simon Ford.
6
replies
Has anyone hacked a Sumobot kit yet and replaced the processor with mbed?
They have IR sensors to detect another robot and IR sensors to detect the white edge of the black Sumobot ring. Two servos for drive motors, easy to run with PWM and the battery pack. Could add more advanced sensors like Sonar and tilt. It is just like Sumo - first robot to push the other one out of the ring wins. The servos have already been hacked for continuous rotation to make low cost robot drive motors.
I think it is way past time to upgrade the old Basic Stamp technology processors many of them use. For example, the one below from Parallax that runs about US $150 ($20 cheaper in two pack kit). Would be nice if someone made a new PCB with mbed and used the other parts from the kit. I have been trying to talk some students here into doing it, but so far not much luck. It would be a fairly simple two sided PCB and you can look at the existing PCB below to see how to set it up.
We could have an mbed Sumobot contest!
Here is an image of the PCB to update and replace with mbed technology insertion. A schematic comes with the documentation. Mainly SIP pins and sockets for IR sensors and servos to connect to mbed pins and power hookups. Would not need a serial cable and might want to replace the protoboard area with an upper deck providing room for more advanced sensors. It uses a 4AA battery pack mounted low in the robot. The forward facing IR detectors plug into the row of SIP sockets at the top of the board and IR floor sensors and servos plug into SIP pins on the left. You might just solder those in, as I recall they often get knocked off. So the simple combat program moves around looks at IR sensors and rams the other robot when it sees it trying to push it out of the ring. When it sees the white floor ring with the downward facing IR sensors below the blade in front it backs away from the edge and turns to stay in the ring. There was a Sumobot contest at an embedded systems conference years ago and it was a lot of fun. They even have official rules and a weigh in at the start of each contest by the refs.