amateur robotics

amateur robotics

[G.M. Wallace]

Does anyone know of any relatively cheap units/systems which let an
amateur experiment with robotics and programming (in ADA, of course) for
robotic systems ?

Like simple mechanical systems which can be run from programs on my
local machine ?

Anyone ?

thanks,

GMW

*from sunny australia*

Re: amateur robotics

[Michael F Brenner]

  > Any inexpensive robots that can be controlled from a home computer?

I do not know of any inexpensive ones, but here are a couple of ideas
that can start you off. Naming particular brands is just to start
you off and does NOT constitute an endorsement or a recommendation 
for any particular brand (my experience is with a very limited
number of manufacturers of these items):

  (a) a buffered multi-serial board from Black Box, Western Digital, etc.
  (b) a 64-reed-relay board from Eagle, Carry-I, etc.,
      to turn things on and off,
  (c) radio control switches from Jackson, Radio Shack, etc. 
      or radio control servos from Ferrettronics, etc.
  (d) stepper motors from National Control Devices, ACP, etc.
  (e) an Ada-to-JavaByteCode interface to use the robots at URLs
      http://jubilee.learning.cs.cmu.edu:8080/command.html
      http://webcam.engsoc.carleton.ca/
      http://telerobot.mech.uwa.edu.au/
  (f) an old truck (volunteer to help Paul for one show at
      Survival Research Labs on Bruno Street in San Francisco
      in order to learn how to use computers to make trucks and
      farm equipment fight themselves to the death)
  (g) digital cameras, microphones, audio systems, votrex boards,
      voice recognition boards, laser weapons, airplanes, cars, 
      robot arms, aritifical intelligence systems, extropian
      devices to upload your mind to the Net, and biological
      and non-biological neural nets from the usual manufacturers 
      of those things.

Sorry that nothing on my list is free or even particularly cheap. 
Hope that others will post less expensive stuff because I am
interested in realtime, distributed systems (that is, robots).

Re: amateur robotics

[Josh Highley]

In article <36F1A10F.18990DC9@interact.net.au>, Dizzy@interact.net.au 
says...
>
>Does anyone know of any relatively cheap units/systems which let an
>amateur experiment with robotics and programming (in ADA, of course) 
for
>robotic systems ?
>
>Like simple mechanical systems which can be run from programs on my
>local machine ?
>
>Anyone ?
>
>thanks,
>
>GMW
>
>*from sunny australia*
>

I've experimented a little with controlling relays, and therefore 
motors, lights, etc; with the parallel port.  It's easy to do using the 
eight data bits, and for each bit either 1) a resistor and transitor or 
2) an IC chip , to switch a relay using an external 12V DC power supply. 
 It's easy to connect 8 relays and I believe more can be added to each 
of the control bits, with a little more work. If you can find them, 
there's articles on converting the Radio Shack Armatron for use with a 
computer.  Controlling the parallel port is easy with Ada by using Jerry 
van Dijk's IO_ports package.  The info above is from a (12 page?) paper 
of his that he sent me  several years ago on controlling relays with the 
parallel port.  By the way, if Jerry is reading this, or someone else 
who has the paper, could you please email it to me again?  I have a hard 
copy somewhere, but I'd like a computer copy also.  The paper has 
instructions, Radio Shack part numbers, Basic code, etc.  The parts cost 
only a few dollars, you just have to supply the object you want to 
control.  I hope this helps.

Josh Highley
joshhighley@hotmail.com

*from sunny Missouri, USA* :)

Re: amateur robotics

[Josh Highley]

>Controlling the parallel port is easy with Ada by using Jerry van 
>Dijk's IO_ports package.  The info above is from a (12 page?) paper 
>of his that he sent me  several years ago on controlling relays with 
>the parallel port.  

Well, isn't my face red.  I'm pretty sure the IO_ports package is 
Jerry's, but the paper I'm talking about isn't.  It is an article by Tom 
Dickinson.  I found my hard copy, it's from two years ago.  Mr 
Dickinson's email address is "tsd@bnl.gov"  Again, it's two years old so 
I'm not sure if it's still valid.  Briefly reviewing the article, it 
also has directions on how to interface a simple A to D converter to the 
parallel port.  I apologize again for getting the names wrong.  I 
just hope Jerrry will keep answering my questions :)

Josh Highley
joshhighley@hotmail.com

Re: amateur robotics

[Andreas Winckler]

"G.M. Wallace" wrote:
> Does anyone know of any relatively cheap units/systems which let an
> amateur experiment with robotics and programming (in ADA, of course)
> for robotic systems ?
> 
> Like simple mechanical systems which can be run from programs on my
> local machine ?
> 
> Anyone ?

Yes, systems which can be used for that are available here. Just how
does that help you on the other side of the world?

> *from sunny australia*

*from cold Germany* :-)


AW
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Andreas Winckler                             Tel: (+49) (7541) 282 - 462
Department: MHS                              Fax: (+49) (7541) 282 - 299
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Re: amateur robotics

[Fraser Wilson]

paene lacrimavi postquam "G.M. Wallace" <Dizzy@interact.net.au> scribavit

http://www.legomindstorms.com

Lego *and* robots.  How cool is that?  They only provide software
for Win95, but people have reverse engineered the protocol, and
now you can control them from Linux.  OK, we're not talking Ada
yet, but I have this compiler ...

Fraser.
(change i's to y's for my real address)