[chbot] APC Magazine Arduino Article

[Richard Jones]

Its always nice to appeal to all the senses and the brain. So maybe a few
sound applications would be good too. Beeps, Music, speech and ultrasound
spring to mind. Persistence of vision is neat too, spelling out letters and
words by waving a six or so LEDs in the air. I like the C3PO head idea,
maybe its not too inappropriate to make R2 noises! 

Richard

On Tue, 4 Aug 2009 11:09:54 +1200, Tim Carr <Tim at mindkits.co.nz> wrote:
> Hi Charles, hello Christchurch Robotics
> 
> Thanks for the ideas and feedback Charles and begrudgingly I think I must
> admit that the blinking light does indeed include a component of
necessity.
> 
> One idea I'm chewing over (as a result of Charles' feedback) is to use
the
> blinking light example to build a basic animatronic head (with blinking
> lights from the first article being used for eyes), the servo gives
> movement
> to the head in the second article and the LDR's/IR's gives tracking for
the
> 3rd article.
> The end product may end up being a 'head' on a servo where the maker can
> decorate/manipulate the 'skin' to their desire and it follows passers by.
> Heh, that just makes me laugh my evil laugh just thinking about the
> applications of such a monstrous thing and it's opportunity to scare the
> daylights out of my better half.
> 
> Having said all this, I suspect even the most basic project will be hard
> pressed to fit into a few mag pages so if anyone has any ideas or
comments
> (positive or negative) I would be most appreciative of your opinion.
> 
> Regards,
> Tim
> MindKits Chief Ninja
> 
> On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 10:37 AM, Charles Manning
> <manningc2 at actrix.gen.nz>wrote:
> 
>>
>> You must include the blinking LED. It is a rite of passage. It is an
>> offering
>> to the Embedded Gods. If you do not make it then you will have a hard
>> life
>> with lots of blown chips etc. Like any journey you mist start out right!
>> :-)
>>
>> Getting the led blinking means you've got all the toolchain, cables and
>> programming working. Enough for the first article.
>>
>> But you want to make something a bit more interesting quite soon.
>> Preferably
>> something that has some action.
>>
>> A few cool(ish) ideas:
>>
>> * 2 LDRs as On/Off touch switches. When you cover the LDR the ambient
>> light
>> is
>> blocked and the output turns on/off.
>>
>> * 2 LDRs mounted on a servo that can track light.
>>
>> * Digital lock using DS2401 single wire serial number chips as keys.
Save
>> a "database" of keys in EEPROM.
>>
>>
>> On Monday 03 August 2009 23:00:01 Tim Carr wrote:
>> > Hi all, I'm hoping I may be able to help me with some ideas. I've been
>> > asked by APC Magazine in Australia to write a series of articles
>> > related
>> to
>> > getting started with Arduino. APC have picked up on the growing
>> popularity
>> > of the platform and I've been tasks with writing a complete beginners
>> > article that gives them an interesting grounding in Arduino in just
2-3
>> > magazine pages and followed on by one or two more advanced articles.
>> >
>> > The challenge I see is not so much in the technology but in picking an
>> > interesting first project that leaves them with the desire to
>> > experiment
>> > and extend their knowledge. As a result I'm loath to start with the
>> > blinking light 'hello world' as I imagine there must be better options
>> that
>> > haven't been thrashed. I must admit though, at this point it really
>> > does
>> > seem to be the best fit. Please prove me wrong....please.
>> >
>> > So, my question is this: When you started building robots, what really
>> took
>> > your fancy and what do you feel may be a good starting 'micro-project'
>> for
>> > others to start with?
>> >
>> > One aim (that may be asking too much) is to develop the howto in such
a
>> way
>> > that the initial article demonstrates the key essential elements of
>> Arduino
>> > setup and use while being easily extended in the second article to
>> produce
>> > something fun and functional. So perhaps the first may be setting up a
>> > servo to move and the second may make it follow the light (I'm not
sure
>> if
>> > that's too hard for newbies but you get my drift).
>> >
>> > Thanks in advance for any thought you can share on this.
>>
>>
>>