Maker Faire Robot Kit [help]

I recently bought the Arduino Robot kit while at Maker Faire in Kansas City.

I'm starting to regret it...

When I first bought the robot the batteries that come with it were dead and despite leaving the robot plugged in overnight they were still dead the next day. I found a local battery store in KC and bought some new batteries and a charger ($50!). Excited, I rushed back to where I was staying for the weekend. I've used Arduino for a long time now and figured I could have a "Hello World!" type program up and running in minutes. It's been awhile now and all I've gotten it to do is beep and show pictures on the LCD screen. So instead of the almost $300 robot I bought I now have a tiny $300 picture viewer.

I have found the Arduino.cc website for the robot (http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Robot) and its library (http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/RobotLibrary) but it hasn't helped.

There are three-pin connectors that are placed all around the robot that I thought I could use for the parallax ping sensors and after figuring out the schematic (there is no information on what is power, what is ground, and what is the signal line), the sensor won't even turn on.

I plugged the sensor into an Arduino and it works fine. I even hooked up a potentiometer to the robot to make sure I had the lines correct and the analog read displays the correct information. I had a parallax motion sensor laying around and hooked it up. It works fine. I took a volt meter and it is putting out 5 volts.

Does anyone have ANY kind of information on these robots? Voltages, pinouts, how it works, tutorials for getting things to work (like the ping sensor), etc, etc???

Thanks for any and all help. I'll be holding my robot looking at the pictures on the LCD.

Hi,

I also have an Arduino Robot kit from Makers.

Have been trying to connect an Ultrasonic Sensor to the 3 pin connectors, but it just will not work.

The 4 pin sensor works perfectly on my Arduino Uno.

It's as though the 3 pin connectors do not work and there are no real examples or info on
the 3 pin configuration.

I'm in a wait state until more info surfaces..... :-/

I do know that those 3 pin connectors are designed for use with Tinkerkit connections. (The same as on Arduino Motorshield).

I have the Motorshield and, after checking with my meter, figured out the pinout for them. If you're looking down on connector with the plastic tab at the bottom, the pin on left is GND, pin on Right is 5V, middle pin is signal.

Other than that, I'd recommend studying the library files and any YouTube videos/reviews you can find about it. Since they're not "officially" released yet, there isn't much other support available.

Good luck! And, maybe check the robotics forum for anyone else whom may have posted about them?

The pinout helps a little bit. I know it was designed with those connectors in mind but if I buy an Arduino board I don't need Arduino sensors. Any sensor I want will work with the Arduino. Just sucks this almost $300 robot doesn't have more documentation.

Thanks.