wow

Wow, it has been a long week. I've had finals in school so I haven't had any time to work on robots this week. Except until this weekend that is. Right now as I'm typing this I am uploading more images and information to my site, so just click on that link right over there to the right of this text and check it out. I have updated information about my DriveBay Mod, my first and second walking robots and my NeuronBot. The second walking robot is currently giving me trouble, I can't seem to get the bicores to oscillate properly and this is really starting to annoy me. If anyone has any experience with this type of stuff please email me. Also if anyone know how to create a laser tripwire type device that would detect intruders I would be grateful for any information.

NeuronBot Update

Yesterday, my team and I continued our efforts to create a Neuron bot. We sucessfully created the photocell eyes for the robot. It took quite some time because Heather is still learning the basics of electronics, but I have no problem with that: teaching is fun. Also I can't seem to get my master/slave bicore setup to fire properly, it keeps freezing. I can get it to work if I make the master bicore "unsuspended" but when it is suspended it doesn't work. I guess there is no noise in my power supply or something, I shall have to investigate more.

Pictures

Hey. I just created a simple site to house the pictures of my various electronic creations. Right now it only has pictures of two of my robots, but in time when I take more pictures and get them uploaded it will have more. The site is http://fiorerobotics.solarbotics.net. Check it out, bookmark it, and visit it often.

Master/Slave Mapping Walker continues

Today I finished another bicore module for the walking robot. I'm building everything in modules, so if need be I can quickly and easily rewire things to try and improve the robot's performance. Like the title? I have yet to think of a catchy name for this robot, I called it a mapping bot because it will be the simplistic master/slave bicore walker with a microprocessor steering the robot and measuring input from the various sensors in an attempt to map out its environment. This will allow it to survive, I hope. It will be able to figure out which areas are safe and return to them in times of peril. Hopefully it will work as I plan. As soon as I get my scanner working maybe I'll upload that drawing I made which better explains the structural layout of the electronics.

Cricket

Today I finally finished my LED cricket bot, based off of a BEAM circuit I found called "Cricket". I can't remember who's circuit it was otherwise I would give them credit. It's actually fairly neat, I have a red and a blue LED that blink on and off and the batteries are charged during the day with a Panasonic solar cell. Kewl stuff.

Neuron Bot

Yesterday, Heather, my girlfriend, came over and wanted to learn about robotics. So I decided we could build a simple robot with op-amp based neurons. We finished most of the mechanical aspects of the project, within the next couple days we'll finish the electrical components and then I'll post some pics of it.

Walking Robot Update

Today, during the rebuilding of a windows xp machine, I came up with an idea of what exactly my latest creation will consist of electronically. It will be a pulse-delay circuit, in traditional BEAM style, that controls the walking. With a reverser and feelers. Plus it will have a microprocessor, most likely something of the 16f84 variety, which will take input from a new rgb light sensor that I have thought of and then influence the pulse-delay circuit. It will also have a microphone connected to it, so it can "run-away" from loud noises in an attempt to save its life. Wow, it's really late ... or early, I'm going to sleep now, I might post some prelim drawings later to give you a better idea of what I'm talking about.

the blog begins

Hello world. I was going to create a full featured website to house the works and thought processes that pertain to my research. However, upon evaluating what I wanted in my site, and how long it would take to create such a site, I have decided that this blog will be much better suited to my needs. Allow me to introduce myself at this point, my name is Loren Fiore, and I build robots. For the moment most of my robots are simple, BEAM technology driven, but I hope to someday in the near future work on robots that require cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI). This place will be updated as often as I remember to, hopefully eventually I will have pictures and diagrams and perhaps schematics about my robots. For now though you have to just trust me that I am building robots, and check back for future updates.