I would like to make a very simple beginners robot,
I actually started building a chassis already and have geared motors and wheels. Its light weight and small, almost a foot long , just an arbitrary length i cut some plastic., maybe too long !
This is all new territory, i had to buy motor controllers that i was told about but they only cost $3 each.
This all started because I bought a Raspberry Pi and then needed something to do with it. Can you tell me if when controlling motors or when i start adding sensors if having the Raspberry pi on board will ever have any advantages using python ?
You could use firmata.
Google around. Using that you can use python on the pi and the Arduino can handle all the i/o.
It works really well with a Teensy board, which has a very small footprint.
https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/
--- bill
This all started because I bought a Raspberry Pi and then needed something to do with it. Can you tell me if when controlling motors or when i start adding sensors if having the Raspberry pi on board will ever have any advantages using python ?
Unless you are designing a robot foir DARPA, most robots can get away with a Mega2560 and maybe a few Pro Mini 328 boards to manage sensors in real time. My fear is you will start digging a money pit.
The RPi has excessive cycles for simple robots and the subsequent use of Arduino introduces latency in the system. Sometimes, multiple uC in conjunction with MPU makes good engineering... But sometimes it does not. The same driver hardware for Arduino, like an H-Bridge could work with RPi IF you do 3.3V to 5V logic level conversion on all digital signals! Arduini "h/w stuff" is mostly 5.0 Volts.
Ultimately, it could be less daunting to interface one high-bandwidth communication to an Arduino from RPi and then use the Arduino as a controller for servos and steppers. Care would need to be exercised on the Arduino side to ensure that NO inputs or states caused blocking of the uC.
Personally, I would find something else to do with RPi.
Ray