Crawling Robot

Fall 2008

This was my very first attempt at building and programming a "robot", using three noisy servos I'd been given, an Arduino, and whatever else I could cobble together. I took this opportunity to also try writing a library in embedded C to control the servos and make my main program look nice and clean. I'll be the first to say this contraption is utterly terrible, but it's staying here because it's foundational to me, and an important reminder of where I started. The things I can do now!

After the tremendous success of this robot, I went on to build the robot from this SparkFun tutorial. I added IR distance sensors for obstacle detection and avoidance, and added a piezo speaker and microphone for communication. I programmed it so the speaker would produce a series of chirps to communicate its decisions, and I could clap my hands a certain number of times to make it start, stop, turn, etc. It was a lot of fun to play around with, and the core hardware still lives in my shop.

Skills Developed

• Arduino/AVR programming (C)
• Sequential and event-based logic
• Sensor measurement and calibration
• Building code libraries for components
• Basic circuit design and assembly
• Tolerance for pain from soldering iron burns
• Patience (debugging)