Intermediate Robot Building Book Review : Robotics Explained : Poised Solutions Library

Intermediate Robot Building Book Review

Intermediate Robot Building

Author:: David Cook
Publisher:: Apress
Published:: 2004
Pages:: 442

Intermediate Robot Building

Intermediate Robot Building Chapters

Assembling a Modular Robot
- Building Modules
- Getting Comfortable with Machining
- Putting it All Together
- Applying Parts and Technqiues to Other Robots
Comparing Two Types of Homemade Motor Couplers and Common Errors to Avoid
- Comparing Two Homemade Coupler Technologies
- Identifying Desired Results in Coupler Drill Holes Along with Common Errors and Their Effects
- Getting Ready to Make a Solid-Rod Coupler
Maxing a Fixture and Drilling Solid Rods for a Coupler
- Gathering Tools and Parts
- Preparing Lengths of Solid Rod for the Couplers
- Making a Coupler Fixture
- Getting the Money Shot
- Drilling the Motor-Shaft and LEGO Axle Coupler holes
- Examining the Coupler So Far
Finishing the Solid-Rod Motor Coupler
- Installing the coupler Setscrew
- Adding the LEGO Axle
- Summary
Building a Motor Inside a Wheel
- Encountering Danger: Bent Shafts Ahead
- Making a hub-Adapter Coupler
- Summary
Understanding the Standards and Setup for Electronic Experiments
- Reading Schematics
- Using Solderless Breadboards
- Understanding Oscilloscope Traces
- Riding the Bandwagon of Modern Electronics
- Summary
Creating a Linear Voltage-Regulated Power Supply
- Understanding Voltage Regulators
- Understanding Linear Voltage-Regulated Power Supplies
- Heading into Optimizations
Making Robot Power Supply Improvements
- Bulking Up the Input and Output Capacitors
- Adding Voodoo Capacitors
- Sprinkling with Bypass / Decoupling Capacitors
- Preventing Damage from Short Cirtuirs or Overcurrent
- Preventing Damage from Overvoltage in a Regulated Circuit
- Putting it All Together for a Robust Robot Power Supply
Driving Miss Motor
- Why a Motor Driver?
- Demostrating the Four Modes of a Motor
- Driving Simply with a Single Transistor
- Putting the NPN and PNP Motor Drivers Together
- The Classic Bipolar H-Bridge
- Interfacing with the High Side
- Mastering Motor Control
Driving Mister Motor
- Driving Motors with MOSFETs
- Driving Motors with Chips
- Evaluating Motor Drivers
- Summary
Creating an Infared Modulated Obstacle, Opponent and Wall Detector
- Detecting Modulated Infrared with a Popular Module or Another Reason to Hog the Remote Control
- Expanding the Detection Circuit to Include an LED Inidicator
- Completing the Reflector Detector Circuit
- Making it Work
Fine-Tuning the Reflector Detector
- Tuning in 38 kH
- Limitation of the Refelector Detector
- Getting Ready for a Practical Robot Application
Roundabout Robot!
- Eaxmining Roundabout
- Roundabout's Circuitry
- Building Roundabout's Body
- Summarizing Roundabout
Test Driving Roundabout
- Preparing for the Test Drive
- Preparing the Robot and Correcting Minor Glitches
- Evaluating Roundabout's Performance
- Getting Stuck
If I Only Had a Brain
- Considering the Motorola KX8 Microcontroller As an Example
- Comparing a Micrcontroller to a Logic Chip
- Programming a Microcontroller
- Exploring Common Microcontroller Features
- Choosing a Microcontroller
- Graduating Your Robot
Building Roundabout's Daughter Board
- Converting to a Two-Story Configuration
- Intercepting Signals: Meeting the New Boss
- Expanding Functionality
- Upgrading a Robot
Adding the Floor Sensor Module
- Sensing Brightness with Photoresistors
- Sensing Brightness with a Photodiode IC
- Following a Line
- Competing in Robot Sumo
- Expanding Possibilities
Cooking Up Some Robot Stew
- Making Music
- Scaling Up
- Mounting Motors
- Roaming the Solar Terrain
- Standing in a Robot's Shoes for a While
- Thank You