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[on:]

Hey,
I'm not sure of where to put this, so if its in the wrong section, can someone move it for me?
 
Basically, I have two Roomba (Dont know what it is? Google Roomba) look alikes. They simply do not perform, but they WERE cheap!.
Anyway, I've pulled one apart and looked for a programming interface. Not wanting to reverse engineer anything (and not finding anything obvious to me, like the roomba's programming interface), I pulled the circuit out and discarded it.
 
Next I pulled out the vacuum assembly and now I have a robot-to-be, with two wheels, a bumper (need optical sensors to sense the this though, more on that later), the wall-follow sensor - which I never saw working, so I'll disregard that. And cliff sensors so it wont fall down stairs.
 
I have no idea if these sensors are compatible with arduino, but if none of them are, it doesn't really matter to me. At least I have a pre-constructed "shell" with wheels and enough room in it for many things (sensors, and LED's, cameras, motors, etc)!
 
I've always wanted a fully autonomous robot that wanders around the house doing stuff. But what? Its no good at cleaning the floor, so what else could it do? I thought it could be a security robot, because there are PIR and sonar sensors available, but I wonder what else I could make it do?
 
At this stage, thats the kind of ideas I'm looking for - What can I do with this robot!? Remember, I have two and will pull the second one apart if it would benefit from having two robots which work together to perform a specific task!
 
Now: I'm a noob to arduino, and electronics, but with a lot of perseverance, I think I will get there. What kinds of things have you done with YOUR arduino?
 
And another thing, how could I get it to communicate to a PC wirelessly in order for more detailed analysis of whatever it finds?

[Reply #1 on:]

hehehe find something really stupid that you want your robot to do and go for it

you probably might be interested in seeing the asuro robot...
it's a kit that is built upon the atmega 8 and that has wireless IR comunication with the pc.
http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Learning/Asuro

you could probably stick asuro parts in your shell to have a super asuro...

[Reply #2 on:]

I always have the same problem - I love building up a robot form factor, but I can never come up with a really good idea to justify it's use.

One thing I think could be useful would be a mapping robot - let it go wild in a room, and when it's done download the data and have a detailed map of the floorplan of the room. Of course there are other robots out there that already do this using an array of sonar sensors but they all only give rough maps. I'm sure something using quadrature and dead reckoning could come up with something better if the problem of accumulating errors could be overcome.

[Reply #3 on:]

Well the major taks I get my robot to do is go to the kitchen and return to where ever I am with a trailor and a drink in it! He has a tiny sound recorder/player so I record something like "A Beer please" and then let him run. He goes to the kitchen then stops and plays what I record. My wife deposits the drink in the trailor and pushes a button and he returns to me with my drink.

But I'm sure there are other tasks like hauling a digital camera for survaliance or even one of those cool wireless video cameras. Take a picture or get live video feed. Send him out under the car to see whats leaking. Or make him a waterproof ROV to clean the pool's suction grill. Spy on the neighbors.

Some other ideas: give him a pincil and make him draw, or better yet a wireless dermel and let him engrave something!

Or you could always go the Aibo route and make him a pet of sorts.

Make him control the household thermostat! Or water heater. He could turn things off when there is no one in the house.

[Reply #4 on:]

I cant think of anything useful that it could do by itself, other than a remote control wireless camera. I think I am going to put some infrared heat sensors on it so that it can detect people.

It would be cool if it could do heat signatures. It could then report who was in the house if the alarm goes off! (If it knew the person beforehand!)

Unfortunately, it cant go up the stairs unless I invent some kind of elevator for it. Perhaps I just need two of these robots :p

[Reply #5 on:]

Although they don't employ an Arduino, "Herbie" style photovore robots are fun.

How to turn an old computer mouse and some electronics junk into a light seeking bot:
http://www.instructables.com/ex/i/941512DCE05410289F96001143E7E506/

Here is a slow one:

They can be made much faster, and they are lots of fun especially when you have an easily scared cat.

[Reply #6 on:]

You should check out this website/blog. This guy does both Arduino AND Roomba hacking:

http://todbot.com/blog/category/roomba/

http://todbot.com/blog/category/arduino/

He has some good tutorials too.

[Reply #7 on:]

be sure to check: http://hackingroomba.com/
the website of the book (yes, a whole book on hacking the roomba!)