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Vol. 6 No. 11 SERVO MAGAZINE SELF-REASSEMBLING ROBOTS • PROPELLER • UNIVERSAL MOTOR • ROBOT PUPPET November 2008
Full Page.qxd 7/9/2008 9:57 AM Page 2

Let your geek shine.

Meet Pete Lewis, lead vocalist for the band
Storytyme. Pete recently created the RS1000,
a new personal monitor system for performing
musicians. It was SparkFun’s tutorials, products
and PCB service that enabled him to take his idea
to market in less than a year.

The tools are out there. Find the resources you

need to let your geek shine too.

Sharing Ingenuity
W W W. S P A R K F U N . C O M

©2008 SparkFun Electronics, Inc. All rights reserved.

Hear music from Storytyme at www.storytymeband.com, or check
out Pete’s RS1000 at www.rockonaudio.com.
Full Page.qxd 10/7/2008 11:41 AM Page 3
TOC Nov08.qxd 10/8/2008 2:38 PM Page 4

PAGE 21 Departments
06 Mind/Iron
18 New Products
20 Events Calendar
72 SERVO Webstore
75 Robotics Showcase
81 Robo-Links
81 Advertiser’s Index

THE COMBAT ZONE ...

Features
26 BUILD REPORT:

Columns 28
30 Pound Combat Robot — Mitch
MANUFACTURING:
08 Robytes Even More Things to Consider When
by Jeff Eckert Building a Fighting Robot
Stimulating Robot Tidbits
33 PARTS IS PARTS:
10 GeerHead Chain Length Calculator and
by David Geer Chain Path Visualizer
Self-Reassembling Robot
35 A Brief History of WAR
14 Ask Mr. Roboto
by Dennis Clark
Your Problems Solved Here
Events
21 Twin Tweaks 30 Results and Upcoming Competitions
31
by Bryce and Evan Woolley
Surveyor’s Travels Event Report:
Robot Battles 2008
68 Robotics Resources
by Gordon McComb
Hand Tools for Robot Construction
Robot Profile
34 Limblifter
76 Appetizer
by R. Steven Rainwater
Why Just Build a Robot? Be a Robot!

78 Then and Now SERVO Magazine (ISSN 1546-0592/CDN Pub Agree#40702530) is published
monthly for $24.95 per year by T & L Publications, Inc., 430 Princeland Court, Corona,
by Tom Carroll CA 92879. PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID AT CORONA, CA AND AT ADDITION-
Robot Competitions and Contests AL ENTRY MAILING OFFICES. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to SERVO
Magazine, P.O. Box 15277, North Hollywood, CA 91615 or Station
A, P.O. Box 54,Windsor ON N9A 6J5; cpcreturns@servomagazine.com

4 SERVO 11.2008
TOC Nov08.qxd 10/8/2008 2:39 PM Page 5

11.2008
VOL. 6 NO. 11

Features & Projects PAGE 56

36 A Robotic Puppet
by John Blankenship and
Samuel Mishal
See how to implement computer
control to give your robots the
illusion of life.

40 The Universal Motor

by Fred Eady PAGE 36
This circuit gives you effective control
of the AC power that is being applied
to your robot’s motor without having
to pamper the microcontroller.

48 Getting Control With the

Propeller: Part 3
by Kevin McCullogh
Stepper motors.

52 The Pico ITX Johnny 5

Project
by Andrew Alter
Part 3 shows the advantages of
having an onboard PC.
PAGE 40
56 When LEGO Meets Sumo
by Phil Malone
See how combining two styles of
robots adds up to a unique
competition.

60 Build a GPS Smart Logger

by Michael Simpson
You’ll want to get started building
this device as it will be incorporated
into the Ultimate Robot Build series
which picks up next month.

SERVO 11.2008 5
Mind-Iron Nov.qxd 10/8/2008 6:52 AM Page 6

Published Monthly By
T & L Publications, Inc.
430 Princeland Ct., Corona, CA 92879-1300
(951) 371-8497
FAX (951) 371-3052
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by Bryan Bergeron, Editor ΠPUBLISHER

Larry Lemieux
publisher@servomagazine.com
I just finished listening to book multi-billion dollar market for ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER/
one of Kevin Anderson’s Saga of PC-based speech recognition VP OF SALES/MARKETING
Seven Suns, in which robots play a document processing products never Robin Lemieux
display@servomagazine.com
central role. In the story, the Klikiss materialized. Today, few people even
robots are highly intelligent, take notice of the speech recognition EDITOR
multi-limbed bug-like creatures software available for the PC and Bryan Bergeron
techedit-servo@yahoo.com
that communicate with other robots Mac – and most hate the speech
using digital data streams and with recognition systems used by the TECHNICAL EDITOR
humans via speech. The tale automated attendants employed by Dan Danknick
dan@teamdelta.com
reminded me that at least one the airlines and credit card industries.
perception of intelligent robots Despite the mystique of “AI” CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
revolves around the power of speech. surrounding speech recognition, Jeff Eckert Tom Carroll
Unfortunately, progress in speech recognition software that Gordon McComb David Geer
Dennis Clark R. Steven Rainwater
robotic speech is relatively stagnant. you can purchase for your PC/Mac Fred Eady Kevin Berry
Speech synthesis has been a mature works by simply matching spectral Bryce Woolley Evan Woolley
technology for decades, and templates of sounds and using tables Andrew Alter Phil Malone
Michael Simpson Samuel Mishal
advances in large vocabulary, of likely word sequences to build John Blankenship Kevin McCullough
continuous speech recognition seems sentences. For example, if you say Ray Billings Mike Jeffries
to have hit a wall in the late 1990s. “ball,” the speech recognition Charles Guan Robert Farrow
This is in part because the projected software would identify likely CIRCULATION DIRECTOR
Tracy Kerley
subscribe@servomagazine.com
Figure 1
MARKETING COORDINATOR
WEBSTORE
Brian Kirkpatrick
sales@servomagazine.com

WEB CONTENT
Michael Kaudze
website@servomagazine.com

PRODUCTION/GRAPHICS
Shannon Lemieux
Joe Keungmanivong

ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT
Debbie Stauffacher

Copyright 2008 by
T & L Publications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
All advertising is subject to publisher’s approval.
We are not responsible for mistakes, misprints,
or typographical errors. SERVO Magazine assumes
no responsibility for the availability or condition of
advertised items or for the honesty of the
advertiser. The publisher makes no claims for the
legality of any item advertised in SERVO.This is the
sole responsibility of the advertiser.Advertisers and
their agencies agree to indemnify and protect the
publisher from any and all claims, action, or expense
arising from advertising placed in SERVO. Please
Mind/Iron Continued send all editorial correspondence, UPS, overnight
mail, and artwork to: 430 Princeland Court,
Corona, CA 92879.
6 SERVO 11.2008
Mind-Iron Nov.qxd 10/7/2008 2:37 PM Page 7

candidates such as “ball,” “fall,” and “gall.” Now, if the

previous three words are “Johnny hit the,” the algorithm
will likely rank ball as the most probable word. Current
accuracy limitations are about 97%, even with individual
training, and accuracy isn’t improved by adding
processing power or memory.
The obvious limitation to current speech recognition
software is that it’s simply a replacement for the
keyboard and video display. There is no underlying
intelligence or reasoning capability. Of course, prototype
systems capable of reasoning have been developed in
academia, but these demonstration projects have been
limited to highly constrained domains.
What we need in robotics is a system that not only
recognizes the phrase, “Johnny hit the ball,” but that can
infer with what. If Johnny is playing soccer, we might
infer he hit the ball with his head. If the sport is baseball,
then we might infer he used a bat. Back to our needs in
robotics, the owner of a service bot should be able to
say, “Please bring me the paper” and the robot should be
able to infer that the owner is referring to the newspaper.
There are also issues of image recognition, mobility, and
grasping the paper, but they all depend on the robot
understanding the need of the owner.
The limitation of speech recognition in robotics then
isn’t in the ability to transform utterances into machine
readable form, but with how the computational elements
of the robot should process the machine readable words
and phrases into actionable commands. So, how do you
go about accomplishing this?
It’s a non-trivial task, as a search of the IEEE literature
on Natural Language Processing will illustrate. The
traditional techniques — such as Hidden Markov Modeling
— might be a bit intimidating if you don’t have a degree
in computer science. However, you can get a feel for the
tools used to map out the contextual meanings of words
and phrases by working with Personal Brain. You can
download the free, fully-functional personal version at
www.thebrain.com.
You can use the Brain to build context maps that
show, for example, inheritance and the relationship
between various objects in your home (see Figure 1). For
your robot to bring you the newspaper, it would have to
first locate the paper, and it would help to know the
possible locations the paper might be found in the home.
It would be inefficient, for example, if the robot began
digging through your clothes’ closet in search of the
newspaper, instead of on the table in your kitchen.
Once you get used to working with Personal Brain,
you might want to explore other uses in robotics. For
example, I keep track of my various robotic projects –
parts, suppliers, references, etc.— by creating networks
with the program. In fact, the best way to build context
maps is to create explicit, detailed maps that actually help
you in everyday tasks. SV

SERVO 11.2008 7
Robytes-Nov-edited.qxd 10/6/2008 10:38 AM
Robytes
Bot Gets Bio Brain
This small mobile robot sports a
biological controller based on
cultured neurons. Courtesy of
the University of Reading.
Placing a functioning human brain
into a robot is still well within the realm
of science fiction, but some folks at
the University of Reading (www.read
ing.ac.uk) have created a biological
brain of sorts and hooked it up as a
robot controller. It has been known for
some time that cultured neurons are
somewhat like ants that have been
scattered away from the anthill in that
they can no longer function as a single
unit. However, when interconnected in
a culture dish, such neurons form sim-
ple networks that display spontaneous
electrical activity and can function as
memories; i.e., they can “learn” things.
In this application, Prof. Kevin
Warwick and associates placed the
neurons on a multielectrode array
which is a dish that employs 60
electrodes to pick up the cells’ signals.
This activity is then used to control the
robot’s movement. When the robot
approaches an obstacle, signals are
sent to the “brain,” and its responses
are used to drive the wheels left or
right to avoid hitting the object. The
research is not aimed at creating
biomechanical robots of the future,
however. Rather, according to
Warwick, “The key aim is that
eventually this will lead to a better
8 SERVO 11.2008
Page 8
understanding of development and
of diseases and disorders which affect
the brain such as Alzheimer’s disease,
Parkinson’s disease, stroke, and brain
injury. This research will move our
understanding forward of how brains
work, and could have a profound
effect on many areas of science and
medicine.”
Give Us Some Skin
Flexible ICs may give robots a
human-like sense of touch.
Courtesy of the University of Tokyo.
There’s a basic problem with
creating a layer of skin for a robot. For
the skin to provide tactile feedback, it
must be able to conduct signals back
to the “brain.” And if the skin is pliable
enough to bend with the bot’s move-
ments, it has to be made of something
flexible, like rubber. The snag is that
rubber is a terrible conductor. But now
researchers at the University of Tokyo
(www.u-tokyo.ac.jp) say they have
developed a new, highly conductive
rubber, paving the way for robots with
stretchable “e-skin.”
The trick was to grind up some
carbon nanotubes, mix them with an
ionic liquid, and add them to the mix.
The resulting material flexes like ordi-
narily elastic but offers conductivity
about 570 times higher. Apparently,
one can use it to create elastic ICs that
by Jeff Eckert
can be mounted on curved surfaces
and stretched up to 1.7 times their
original size with no mechanical dam-
age or significant change in conductivi-
ty. (You can stretch the stuff more, but
conductivity drops by about 50 percent
by the time you get to 2.3 times the
original size.) With further develop-
ment of the material, bots of tomor-
row may be able to feel temperature
and pressure like we do.
Must Be Nuts
This climber bot could boost coconut
pickers’ productivity by 800 percent.
It isn’t immediately apparent how
students at Troy High School (www.
troyhigh.com) became concerned
about the well-being of the world’s
professional coconut pickers, but they
are. It seems that gathering nuts from
the “tree of life” requires harvesters to
climb 100 ft trees and chop them
down with machetes, which is both
dangerous and inefficient. Hence, the
“robotic tree climber,” which the
students developed for the 2008
Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams event. The
remarkable feature of the remote-
controlled device is that it can
accommodate changing tree
diameters, thanks to its employment
of a DryLin® QuadroSlide linear guide
system, which was donated by igus,
Inc. (www.igus.com), a manufacturer
of various motion-related components
and machinery. The developers of the
climber tell us that it will allow pickers
to scale more than 40 trees per day, as
opposed to the present five to 10. Will
Robytes-Nov-edited.qxd 10/6/2008 4:54 PM Page 9

Robytes

the resulting glut of coconuts cause mission-critical operations such as

a precipitous drop in the price of
coconut cream pie? Only time and
the commodity markets will tell.
Heli See, Heli Do
In the past, programming robotic
helicopters has been something of a
pain, given that they must perform
some fairly complex maneuvers and
(unlike fixed-wing vehicles) are inher-
ently unstable. But computer scientists
at Stanford University (www.stan
ford.edu) — tired of laboriously
pecking out source code from scratch
— have developed some AI algorithms
that allow their four-foot autonomous
helicopter fleet to teach itself to fly.
The process involves both ground-
based and ‘copter-mounted instru-
ments, including accelerometers,
gyros, magnetometers, GPS receivers,
and cameras. It begins with a human
using a remote control to put a vehicle
through a series of stunts and
repeating them several times. The
instruments record the flight data,
which becomes the basis of the
control program. But the AI system
monitors the resulting autonomous
flight data, crunches the numbers, and
relays program modifications back to
the helicopter 20 times per second,
allowing the vehicle to learn from its
mistakes and actually perform better
than under remote control.
In the real world, such improved
autonomous performance could
enable these choppers to be used in
Stanford’s AI system allows helicopters to
learn aerobatic maneuvers by “watching”
others. Courtesy of Stanford University.
monitoring wildfires in real time and
searching for land mines in war zones.
Bots For Art’s Sake
According to Oscar Wilde, “Life
imitates art far more than art imitates
life,“ but sometimes art imitates
imitations of life, and a couple
interesting works were on display this
year. Perhaps the biggest spectacle
centered around La Princesse, a 50 ft
(13 m) mechanical spider created by
the French performance art company
La Machine.
The spider was showcased in
Liverpool, England, back in September
as part of the 2008 European Capital
of Culture celebrations. In the photo,
we see it clinging to the side of
Concourse House, a derelict tower
block that was scheduled for later
demolition.The spider was built in
Nantes, France, using steel and poplar
wood, and complex hydraulics, taking
an entire year to construct. Operated
by up to 12 people strapped to its
body, it weighs 37 tonnes, has 50 axes
of movement, and offers seven
different special effects: rain, flame,
smoke, wind, snow, light, and sound.
The project cost British taxpayers
£1.5 million ($2.6 million), plus the
cost of treating unhinged arachnopho-
bia sufferers, but at least admission to
the celebration was free.
Less spectacular but (literally)
creepy is Miyata Jiro, a crawling
humanoid robot created by Japanese-
born artist Momoyo Torimitsu,
who now resides in New York.
Miyata is a detailed and lifelike
model of a Japanese “salaryman”
who basically crawls around on
his elbows like a soldier in the
field. He has performed in New
York, London, Paris, Amsterdam,
Sydney, and Rio de Janeiro so far,
evoking responses ranging from
laughter to anger.
According to Torimitsu,
Robotics continues to be a popular
medium for artists, as demonstrated
by Miyata Jiro, the robotic
Japanese businessman.
La Princesse, a giant mechanical spider.
“When Japan entered its high
growth period in the 1960s, Japanese
society was transformed into a
`businessman culture’ characterized by
entertainment, movies, karaoke, TV,
compartmentalized housing, bars,
and even a sex industry that catered
to them. This artwork reflects my
impression of this particular culture.”
Miyata can be seen at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=
glUnzzoFUxg. You may mistake the
performance for just an amusing little
parody, but thankfully we have critics
to set us straight. According to zing
magazine.com’s Rainer Ganahl, “The
power and success of this life-sized
crawling doll lies in the dramatic
representation of a businessman in
its most humiliating position: crawling
in the street in a suit. This is a strong
linguistic metaphor, as well as a
psychoanalytical and a pathological
one.” So there’s your elightenment
for the month. SV

SERVO 11.2008 9
Geerhead-edited.qxd 10/8/2008 4:30 PM Page 10

by David Geer Contact the author at geercom@alltel.net

A Self-Reassembling Robot

Ever seen a robot torn apart only to put itself back together? Jimmy Sastra, a student in the
Modular Robotics Lab at the University of Pennsylvania has. He helped create it. As with
most scientific endeavors, the Robotic Self-Reassembly After Explosion (SAE) project was
a solution to a problem: how to get a robot to reassemble itself after ‘disassembly’ by
‘explosion’ (“Towards Robotic Self-Reassembly After Explosion,” the Modular Robotics Lab,
University of Pennsilvania, Mark Yim, et.al.). Jimmy Sastra, a named author on the paper and
research student at the University, calls an explosion “the rapid randomized disassembly of
a system from a high-energy event.” As shown in the video linked here with, the explosion
is the separation of the robot as students kick it apart, separating it into three parts.

he Self-Reassembling robot is a
T precursor to modular, self-
configuring robots of the future,
which are envisioned with many
Close-up of cluster with camera module.
thousands of parts and modules that
configure themselves for varying
applications or — as in this case —
reassemble all their parts after
separation by explosion.
In this experiment, the goals of
the robot are to perform a task, suffer
an explosion, reassemble itself, and
continue the original task from where
it left off.
This cluster of five modules shows the
camera module attached, top-side.
The robot is designed to
disassemble along specific, preselected
lines or weakest links between the
modules in a structured fashion. By
ensuring that the robot separates at
these “bonds” between the modules,
the robot absorbs the shock and
disassembles at points where it is
capable of reassembling.
The self-assembly of the robot is
part of a larger plan for self-repair.
This type of self-repair involves
diagnosis of the problem/break
points, a plan for re-assembly, and
an execution of that plan, according
to Yim.

Diagnosis
The robot uses sensors to
determine that it is no longer
connected to itself. The robot consists
of clusters of modules. According to
Jimmy Sastra, the clusters are
connected to each other at certain
modules — using magnets. Each
module face — which is connected to
another module face — has two IR
10 SERVO 11.2008
Geerhead-edited.qxd 10/8/2008 4:31 PM
Three separated clusters attempting to
locate each other and re-join.
(infrared) pairs: one is an emitter and
one is a detector.
The pairs check to see whether
they can communicate with the set of
pairs on the other module facing
them. If they can’t communicate with
each other, they know they have been
“exploded” (disconnected from each
The single robot returns to its original
activity: walking.
Three clusters re-united into a
single robot.
Page 11
Two clusters making ground
toward each other.
other). The IR pairs also inform the
modules as to who their neighboring
modules are.
Each cluster consists of five
modules screwed together. Each
module in a cluster also uses IR pairs
to determine which module is its
neighbor. Each cluster talks to itself
using a CANbus, which is a global
bus connecting the internal
microcontrollers.
Planning and
Execution
Each module in the robot
contains a microcontroller that
controls the angle of the module.
Each of three camera modules
employs a vision localization
processor. The camera module also
contains a communications unit.
The camera module includes a
More Entertainment Than A Political Debate!
By the time this is published,
Jimmy Sastra and the self-
reassembling robot team will have
attended the Wired NextFest at
which they planned to demo the
robot. “It’s a well attended event,”
comments Sastra.
The robot is a collaboration of
various labs at the University of
Pennsylvania, including CJ Taylor’s
lab, which worked on the vision
technology and Mark Yim’s lab, which
worked on the modular robotics.
Other researchers involved
GEERHEAD
Two clusters even closer. The third
cluster is shown in the background.
three-axis accelerometer so that it may
know its orientation; whether it is
standing or lying down. “After we kick
the robot to explode it, it might be
upside down. Using the accelerome-
ter, it will self-right the cluster or the
entire robot as needed. It needs to
self-right in order to locomote to
connect to the other clusters,”
explains Sastra.
Each of three clusters has an
additional stand-alone controller
that communicates with the micro-
controllers in the camera modules.
Each microcontroller runs its own
state machine (software), according to
Sastra. If the robot is fully assembled,
it walks. If it is assembled, one of the
three stand-alone controllers in one of
the three clusters will become the
master controller over the other
clusters and control the walking task.
As the robot walks, it uses its IR
in the project include Babak
Shirmohammadi, Michael Park, and
Michael Dugan, all of the University
of Pennsylvania. Sastra notes that
while there are about eight different
modular robotics labs around the
world, the robot from the University
of Pennsylvania is a very unstructured
demonstration of the technology,
and it uses a high impact means of
disassembling. Probably the closest
to this robot is in a lab in Japan,
called the Entran robot, which can
also self-assemble.
SERVO 11.2008 11
Geerhead-edited.qxd 10/8/2008 4:35 PM Page 12

GEERHEAD

distributed system and each cluster

RESOURCES
Video demo, self re-assembling robot,
separated, then
reconstructing itself
http://modlab.seas.upenn.edu/
wiki/?n=Main.JimmySastra?action=
download&upname=sae.mpg
Roboticist Jimmy Sastra website
http://modlab.seas.upenn.edu/
wiki/?n=Main.JimmySastra
Other cool modlab robotics videos
http://modlab.seas.upenn.edu/
wiki/?n=Main.Movies
will circle until it locates another.
When any two clusters see each
other (the camera of one sees the
flashing LEDs of the other, and vice
versa), they start moving toward
each other. As part of the re-assembly
process, each cluster needs to localize
the other clusters so they can talk to
each other. The blinking LEDs enable
each cluster to ID the others because
they use different blink patterns.
Once the clusters recognize each
other, they come together so that
they can dock at their ajoining
modules, which use magnetic faces,
as previously mentioned.

continue walking. If at any point it Conclusion

The single robot with its third
cluster upright.
sensors to check whether the clusters
are all connected. If they are, it will
determines that it is disconnected
from the other clusters, each cluster
begins searching for the others. This
becomes an independent task of each
master controller in each cluster. At
this point, the robot is essentially a
This technology is just the
beginning of robots that can
quickly re-assemble once they have
literally been blown apart into many
pieces. SV

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12 SERVO 11.2008
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MrRoboto-Nov-edited.qxd 10/7/2008 11:08 AM Page 14

Our resident expert on all things

robotic is merely an email away.
roboto@servomagazine.com

Tap into the sum of all human knowledge and get your questions answered here!
From software algorithms to material selection, Mr. Roboto strives to meet you
where you are — and what more would you expect from a complex service droid?

by
Dennis Clark

Since I like to group similar topics with the questions in this power supply. The odd looking diodes D5 and D6 are
column, the theme this month seems to be motor controls. transient voltage suppressors (TVS) that protect the
transistors from excessive voltage spikes between the

Q . Hey, could something like a relay board be used

for driving really big honking motors with PWM?
I have eight relays, and (unless I’m confused) you
can make an H-bridge out of four, so it seems like you could
use this as a dual H-bridge motor driver if you wanted, and
have your motor power completely separated from your logic
circuitry. Or is this nonsense?
- Joe in Fort Collins
collector and emitter. The values of all of these diodes and
transistors depend upon the current that you are running
through your relays; more current = bigger relays = more
drive current to turn on their coils. This type of motor
controller is pretty common in older “BattleBot” style
vehicles. It is simple, rugged, and high powered. We call it
the “Bang! Bang!” motor controller because it has little
finesse. It literally bangs the motor on and off. It works, but
it ain’t pretty. With a little more effort, we can create a more

A . In reality, you don’t need so many relays to make a

reversible motor controller. If you design a motor
controller that is just all relays, you would only need
two relays if one of them is a DPDT (double dole, double
throw). One example of this type of driver is shown in Figure
useful motor controller that can handle very large loads and
have variable speeds, as well. Usually, our robot motor
controllers are H-bridges that use transistors to choose the
direction of current flow through our motors, and from that
the motor direction. However, high powered H-bridges are
1. There are only two speeds with this type of a driver: ON expensive and need proper care and feeding. If we use a
and OFF. Diodes D1 and D2 shunt the CEMF, often called MOSFET and single DPDT relay, we can create very high
Back EMF to the relay coil and not to the transistors. Diodes current motor drivers for very little cost. Figure 2 shows just
D3 and D4 try to keep those voltage spikes out of your such a motor controller. This particular motor driver is limited
to eight amps because that
is the current limit of the
Figure 1. Relay only motor driver. transformer. The MOSFET is
capable of handling over 30
amps. Note that this design
uses opto-isolators to protect
the rest of our robot from
unfriendly voltage and
current spikes from the
motor controller. The relay
has the usual CEMF diode
and the MOSFET is protected
by a TVS, as well. Another
notable design characteristic
is the zener diode on the
gate of the MOSFET. This is
to protect the MOSFET from
having the gate ring at a
14 SERVO 11.2008
MrRoboto-Nov-edited.qxd 10/7/2008 11:10 AM Page 15
higher voltage than the Vgs rating of the device. Ringing
can occur on any MOSFET that is driving a high Vds (Voltage
across the drain and source of the MOSFET). Even if the
MOSFET has a voltage rating of 60V, the Vgs will typically be
much less than that. The resistor R4 is used to bleed off the
voltage at the gate of the MOSFET which will speed up its
switching time. The PWM frequency here is limited by the
opto-isolator transition speeds. The advantage of this type of
MOSFET/relay motor driver compared to the relay only driver
is that you can PWM the MOSFET and get variable speeds. If
you are driving large currents, however, it is a good idea to
turn the PWM off before switching motor directions to avoid
arcing on your relay contacts.
Q . I’ve heard that PID is hard to implement but that it
makes your motors run better. Is this true?
- Don
A . Hmmm, I guess this depends on your definition of
difficult. There have been many articles written about
PID algorithms, and if you have read some of them
you could come away with the idea that PID is horrifically
complex and difficult to implement. Really, this is not
generally true. Sure, some of the very fancy algorithms that
need to run super fast for super accurate motor controls can
be very hairy indeed. But most of that complexity comes
from the need to have high accuracy for special applications.
We can implement PID in our robot motors with a minimum
of complexity because we would be happy with just getting
constant speeds that don’t depend much on battery levels.
Before we continue, some definitions are in order for the
elements of a PID algorithm.
Proportional: We will apply a correction that is
Figure 2. MOSFET and
relay motor driver.
proportional to the difference between the speed we are
going now and the speed we want to be going. In other
words, if we want to be going 500 RPM and we are going
100 RPM, we will have a larger P term than if we wanted to
go 500 RPM and we were already going 400 RPM.
Integral: We will add a correction every time we are not
going the speed that we want to be going. This element of
the PID algorithm is usually the one that is misunderstood.
With this element, we will accumulate an error term every
cycle of the PID where our speed is not where we want it to
be. Sometimes the P error term will not be large enough to
reach our terminal speed. Over time, the I error term will get
larger and force a greater error correction to eventually
occur. This is a very handy error term for making smooth
corrections to large error terms. This term should be kept
small relative to the other PID elements.
Derivative: The P and I elements have been driving us
onward to our terminal speed goal. As we approach our
goal, someone needs to start applying the brakes so that we
don’t overshoot the target. This is what the D term will do.
As the motor speed gets closer to the terminal value that we
want, the D term will start supplying a negative correction to
slow the acceleration down so that we won’t overshoot our
target speed (by much). This term will be larger than the I
term, but still smaller than the P term. This term is arrived
at by subtracting the last error from the current error.
Eventually (we hope), the current error will be smaller than
the last error and this term will get increasingly more
negative.
Error: This is the name given to the difference between
the terminal (target) speed and the current speed.
Correction: This is the PWM value that we will give the
motors to tell them to speed up or slow down.
So, here is how a PID loop is calculated and used.
SERVO 11.2008 15
MrRoboto-Nov-edited.qxd 10/7/2008 7:15 AM Page 16
Read your chosen feedback value and subtract it from
your desired terminal value. This is called the error term. You
can get this any way you want — via wheel encoder, motor
back EMF readings, or anything else you wish to use. It will
be: error = (desired speed – current speed).
Calculate your P term. It will be: kP * (error term) =
Vproportional.
Calculate your I term. It will be: kI * SUM(all past error
terms) = Vintegral.
Calculate your D term. It will be: kD * (current error –
last error) = Vderivative.
Calculate your Correction term. It will be: Vproportional
+ Vintegral + Vderivative. Note that Vderivative will most
likely be a negative term.
Apply your correction term to your PWM setting; this
will set the voltage to the motor.
A PID algorithm will have terms that are used to multiply
times the error term. These terms will supply the gain of the
term. Think of them as amplifiers for the error term in the
PID algorithm. Typically, they are denoted with a lower case
k. In order of our definition above, they are kP, kI, and kD.
You’ve probably heard the term “tuning a PID loop.” This is
the process of tweaking the three terms above to give your
PID algorithm the response you desire.
That isn’t so scary, is it? There are more sophisticated
ways to calculate these values and come up with proper
corrections that will work with your PWM generation, but
careful selection of your PID gains will allow your loop (called
a loop because you do it over and over again) to return sane
values. Your friendly neighborhood SERVO Magazine website
has a C program written in CCS PCM for the PIC16F73
microcontroller that allows you to play with your PID
algorithm to see what gain values cause what responses.
You can download this program at www.servomagazine.
com under Mr. Roboto as picpid.zip.
I’ll describe the various functions of this demonstration
code first. Picpid will allow you to control the speed and
direction of a DC motor through a serial interface at 115200
baud. You are free to choose your favorite processor, but I
recommend that you use one that has a hardware PWM, as
well as a hardware USART, so that your PID algorithm can
run as fast as it can in the background. This program does
not use interrupts to take the error term; it simply operates
at a sample rate of every 5 ms.
To do the best job with a PID algorithm, you should
have the sample rate repeat at a constant rate so your error
terms will be proportional to both the time they are taken
and the error value that you get. Picpid is simply an example
program that will allow you to play with PID values to see
what effects they have on your hardware.
Picpid uses the ADC hardware to measure the CEMF (or
back EMF) of the DC motor to determine how fast it is
spinning. This isn’t incredibly accurate, but it requires no
other sensors to be used beyond that required to get the
voltage from the motor wires. Listing 1 shows the GetError()
function which reads that back EMF. Feel free to modify this
to get your quadrature readings instead. (Listing 1, 2, and 3
are available on the website, as well.) Here, in this function,
16 SERVO 11.2008
you should scale your readings to allow them to match
up with your PWM settings. I’m using a 10 bit PWM in
the PIC hardware, so I scaled my readings up by two to get
better response.
signed long getError()
/* Find the difference between where we want to be and
where we are. */
{
signed long error;
unsigned int16 ma,mb;
setup_ccp1(CCP_OFF); //Turn off PWM
delay_us(500); //wait for steady state
set_adc_channel(0); //get fwd side voltage
delay_us(20);
ma = read_adc();
ma <<= 1; // “Amplify” the signal, making it
// more relevant
set_adc_channel(1); //get reverse side voltage
delay_us(20);
mb = read_adc();
mb <<= 1;
currPos = (signed long)((signed long)ma - (signed long)mb);
//printf(“ma= %lu mb= %lu\n\r”,ma,mb);
setup_ccp1(CCP_PWM_PLUS_3);
error = calcPos - currPos;
return error;
}
Note that new settings are only sent to the program
when you press the L key. This allows you to set several
attributes before the motor has to respond to them.
Picpid is a very simple PID implementation, but it works.
There are bugs in it, such as interesting motor behavior at
boundary conditions that I didn’t test and correct for. Since I
chose to use 16-bit signed calculations, the resolution isn’t as
great as it could be, but again, it works. Experiment with the
settings to see what happens. You may wish to change the
program to make it implement a positional servo mechanism
instead of one controlling motor speed. It can be done!
I will leave this as an exercise for the student. You too
can implement PID in your motors quite easily. However, I
caution you — a PID algorithm of sufficient sample speed
will take over your microcontroller if it is a low speed
device. I recommend that you implement PID on a dedicated
microcontroller and talk to it via a serial connection like this
one or SPI or even I2C so that your main computer can set
its “mind” to higher things that you want your robot to
be doing.
I hope that you’ve learned something this month.
As usual, I can be reached for questions, comments, and
criticisms at roboto@servomagazine.com and I’ll be happy
to work on it! Until next time, keep on building those
robots! SV
Full Page.qxd 10/7/2008 11:43 AM Page 17

email: sales@crustcrawler.com
NOV08NewProd.qxd 10/8/2008 9:54 PM Page 18
New Products
N E W P RO D U C T S
ROBOT KITS
KicCrad
1 SORC Technologies, LLC (pronounced “one source”)
announces the release of its premiere product, the
KicCrab walking crab robot kit. This kit is one of the
most complete robot kits on the market today,
combining the three basic components of robotics
(mechanical engineering, electronics, and programming)
to create the ultimate robotics experience for both the
advanced and beginner robotics enthusiast.
The KicCrab is based on the popular three motor
walker design and utilizes tiny R/C airplane servos which
can be precisely positioned for controlled walking.
Many hours have gone into the design to make it
both appealing and functionally balanced for great
performance. All structural components are cut from
light but durable expanded PVC plastic.
Kits are available in four colors: red, yellow, green,
and blue. The functional electronic circuit board is
printed on colored boards to match the crab colors.
When complete, the circuit board becomes the curved
shell of the crab, giving it a unique character while
maintaining a robotic look. This versatile board is also
equipped with extra ports for the addition of an IR
demodulator for remote control, I2C peripherals, IR
sensors, tactile sensors, temperature sensors, and
light sensors, as well as a modulated IR output for
communications with other crabs or for annoying your
family by changing the channels on your TV.
The KicCrab offers USB programming via onboard
USB to TTL conversion. It also has a state-of-the-art
onboard Lithium Polymer battery charging circuit that
charges and manages the KicCrab’s battery using PC
power through the USB connection. The kit includes the
battery, which should last the lifetime of the robot.
The KicCrab also includes the KicChip™ processor
and the intelligently designed KicStudio™ programming
environment. This system provides an outstanding
18 SERVO 11.2008
solution for those who haven’t yet mastered the skills of
programming. Using a flowchart-style programming
interface, even the most inexperience programmer can
be using his KicCrab in no time. The chip can also be
programmed in the Basic language for the more
experienced programmer. Those wishing to learn Basic
can program using the flow chart style and watch as it’s
translated to Basic in real time.
The assembly of this kit requires a skill level of 5 and
therefore may not be suitable for children under the age
of 15. Kits are available online for $79.95.
For further information, please contact:
1SORC Technologies Web: www.1sorc.com
EDUCATION
New Robotics Curriculum
I nnovation First, Inc. (www.innovationfirst.com),
and Autodesk, Inc. (www.autodesk.com), have
teamed up to offer a new robotics curriculum package.
It is primarily intended for classroom use, but it includes
some features that should make it appealing to the
home hobbyist, as well. Autodesk has been around
for years, providing 2D and 3D design software to
manufacturing, construction, and other markets, and its
contribution is based on the Autodesk Inventor package,
which is used by many professional robotics engineers.
Innovation First is kicking in its VEX Robotics system,
which is already used in more than 2,000 classrooms.
The result is the new VEX Classroom Lab Kit, which
“provides a custom solution for robotics education that
is flexible enough to be applied at multiple grade levels,
including secondary and post-secondary.”
The basic $699 package contains a set of 17 units,
each of which contains a separate lesson, concept, and
activity. For a list of included hardware and options, visit
www.vexrobotics.com/vex-education.shtml.
The Lab Kits make it easy to bring VEX Robotics into
the classroom while making budgets go farther. Turn-key
bundles of essential classroom equipment make it easy
to order while saving money. The Classroom Lab Kit
which is ideal for two to five students. This bundle
includes everything needed to design, build, power, and
operate robots. Increase the challenge level by adding
expansion kits for advanced sensors, drive systems,
and pneumatics. For larger classes, add kits for every
NOV08NewProd.qxd 10/8/2008 9:55 PM Page 19

additional two to five students.

Bundled kits are ideal for the beginning VEX
Robotics engineering lab and include popular accessory
items. Turn-key discounted bundle includes:

• Protobot Robot Kit

• Microcontroller
• Transmitter and Receiver
• Additional Servo
• Bumper Switch Kit
• Limit Switch Kit
• Advanced Gear Kit
• Chain and Sprocket Kit
• PWM Cable Bundle
• (4) Safety Glasses
• Inventor’s Guide
• Tank Tread Kit
• Booster Kit w/Additional Metal, Gears, and Hardware
• 7.2V Robot Battery and Charger applications. Wheels can be mounted one, two, or even
• 9.6V Transmitter Battery and Charger three wide. Mounting two or three wheels to the same
hub gives the flexibility of creating wider tread or mixing
For further information, please contact: different durometers.
Custom hub solutions are available subject to
minimum quantity orders (typically starting at 500).
Innovation First, Inc. Website: www.innovationfirst.com For further information, please contact:
and Autodesk, Inc. www.autodesk.com
520 W 67th St.
BaneBots, LLC Loveland, CO 80538
970•461•8880 Fax: 970•461•8771

Show Us What You’ve Got!

WHEELS
Is your product innovative, less expensive, more functional, or
just plain cool? If you have a new product that you would
like us to run in our New Products section, please email
New Line of Wheels and Hubs a short description (300-500 words) and a photo of your
product to: newproducts@servomagazine.com
B aneBots has a newly released line of wheels and
hubs specifically designed to
provide a simple, lightweight,
durable, low cost method of mount-
ing a wheel on just about any small
motor or shaft. Constructed of a
thermoplastic rubber tread bonded
to a polypropylene core, they
provide excellent traction.
The wheels are available in
eight different sizes ranging from a
small 1-3/8” diameter (weighing
only 1/4 oz) up to a relatively
large 4-7/8” diameter. Treads are
available in various durometers
including soft 30 Shore A green
tread, medium 40 Shore A orange
tread, and relatively hard 50 Shore
A blue tread.
Standard low profile hubs and
bushings are available supporting
shaft sizes from 2 mm upto 1/2”
in both drive wheel and caster

SERVO 11.2008 19
Events.qxd 10/8/2008 9:27 PM Page 20
Send updates, new listings, corrections, complaints, and suggestions to: steve@ncc.com or FAX 972-404-0269
Know of any robot competitions I’ve missed? Is your
local school or robot group planning a contest? Send an
email to steve@ncc.com and tell me about it. Be sure to
include the date and location of your contest. If you have a
website with contest info, send along the URL as well, so we
can tell everyone else about it.
For last-minute updates and changes, you can always
find the most recent version of the Robot Competition FAQ
at Robots.net: http://robots.net/rcfaq.html
— R. Steven Rainwater
N ov e m b e r
1 Bloomington VEX Tournament
Ivy Tech Community College, Bloomington, IN
Events include Top-It-Off-2, Pythagorean-2, VEX
Tractor Pull, and a CAD Design Contest.
http://robotics.bloomington.googlepages.com
15 ROBOMO Expo
Indian Trails Public Library, Overland, MO
This year’s ROBOMO will include demonstrations
of mini-Sumo, line-following, mini-Magellan, and
robot soccer. All robots are welcome. There
will be door prizes and a Chinese food buffet
afterwards.
www.robomo.com
21-23 All Japan MicroMouse Contest
Tsukuba, Japan
Includes Micromouse, Micromouse Expert level,
and Micro Clipper events.
www.robomedia.org/directory/jp/game/mm_
japan.html
22 Roaming Robots Grand Final
Kent, UK
“Robots” (RC vehicles) attempt to destroy each other.
www.roamingrobots.co.uk/events_
calendar.htm
22-23 Canadian National Robot Games
Ontario Science Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Lots of events including Mini-Sumo, full size
Sumo, fire-fighting robots, line-following, a
20 SERVO 11.2008
walking robot race, Photovore, Search and Rescue,
and an Art and Innovation contest.
www.robotgames.ca
24 Hawaii Underwater Robot Challenge
Kahanamoku Pool, UoH at Manoa, Honolulu, HI
Timed, multitasking tethered mission.
www.marinetech.org/rov_competition
29 FIRST LEGO League of South Africa
Championship
Sci Bono Science Center, Johannesburg,
South Africa
FIRST LEGO League events.
www.fllsa.org.za
TBA South’s BEST competition
Beard-Eaves Memorial Coliseum, Auburn
University, Auburn, AL
Different each year, see website for details.
The listed date is for the state-wide championship
contest. A month earlier, the various teams have
regional contests and the winners go on to
compete at the state-wide competition. BEST
is very similar to the FIRST contest except that in
the BEST event, teams of students build robots
from standardized kits with only minimal guidance
from their corporate sponsors.
www.southsbest.org/ or www.bestinc.org/
December
4-31 ROBOEXOTICA
Museumsquartier, Vienna, Austria
Robots are tested on serving cocktails, mixing
cocktails, bartending conversation, lighting
cigarettes/cigars, and other achievements in
electronic cocktail culture.
www.roboexotica.org/en/acra.htm
5 Robotex
Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, ESTONIA
www.robotex.ee
17-21 IROC International Robot Olympiad
Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA
www.iroc.org or www.iiu.edu.my/ICOM/2008
TwinTweaks-Nov-edited.qxd 10/6/2008
T he folks at Inertia Labs may have
forever earned a celebrated place
in the memory of combat
robotics fans with their formidable
and uplifting creations like Toro, but
Alexander Rose and Reason Bradley
have also put their energies into other,
less destructive projects. One of their
new endeavors at Inertia Labs is as a
designer and distributor for the new
quad motor Surveyor SRV-1Q from
Surveyor Labs — a nifty little treaded
robot outfitted with a high quality
camera. Perhaps the most distinctive
detail about the SRV-1Q is that it
allows you to do your surveying
autonomously or over a wireless
network. How cool is that? With that
most tantalizing detail about the
Surveyor robot and its capability to be
controlled wirelessly over the Internet,
we were excited to see what this web
savvy robot had to offer.
Let Your Robot
Do the Walking
The Surveyor robot can be
acquired in pre-assembled form, or
it can be bought as a kit that needs
to be put together. We received the
already built version, but we also
3:30 PM Page 21
THIS
MONTH:
Surveyor’s
Travels
received the base kit so that we could
make another bot. Two bots in one
article is a bit too crowded, so the
project base will have to wait for
another month.
At first blush, it is evident that the
Surveyor is one sophisticated bot. The
tough rubber treads give the bot a
rugged feel, and the solid frame
constructed from thick plastic and
machined aluminum is like Chuck
Norris walking into High Tea. The
elegant exterior hides four DC gear-
motors with a 100:1 gear reduction
that gives the robot both hefty torque
and considerable zippiness. The robot
is also quite well equipped in the
sensor department. A high quality
camera takes center stage on the face
of the bot, and it is flanked by laser
pointers for range finding. And in
case those sensors don’t make the bot
aware enough for you, the fancy
printed circuit boards (PCBs) have
ports for additional sensors like
ultrasonic range finders.
The robot comes with an antenna
and a charger that imbues it with over
four hours of battery life. A clearly
labeled switch at the back of the bot
labeled ON, OFF, and CHARGE is also
a comforting sight. The robot radio is
FIGURE 1.THE SURVEYOR.
Lantronix Matchport 802.11b/g WiFi,
and the robot can be teleoperated
from a distance of 100 m indoors,
and up to 1,000 m with a line of
sight. The bot makes use of three
layers of PCBs (Figures 2, 3, and 4),
but with the plastic headpiece holding
down the camera, the lower boards
are fairly difficult to reach. That,
however, shouldn’t be a major
concern. The topmost PCB on a fancy
red wafer is what will intrigue most
tinkerers, because it is this board
that possesses the spare ports for
additional sensors and other flights
of fancy. And to top it all off, the red
PCB is graced by the presence of a
nice Blackfin processor.
One Fish, Two Fish,
Red Fish, Blackfin
The Blackfin processor from
Analog Devices debuted circa 2001,
and it is designed specifically to
support open source operating
systems like Linux. This is great news
for tinkerers of a programming
persuasion, but the descendant of the
SHARC processor has something to
offer to more mechanical hobbyists,
as well. The Blackfin was designed to
SERVO 11.2008 21
TwinTweaks-Nov-edited.qxd 10/6/2008 3:31 PM
Twin Tweaks ...
FIGURE 2
create a platform where applications
including sound, video, and signal
processing could be integrated
without sacrificing the performance of
any single application. A project that
combines video and other signal
processing sounds a lot like a camera
toting robot – how fortuitous! And to
top it all off, the Blackfin cuts through
the waters of signal processing with
the utmost energy efficiency.
The Blackfin processor on the
SRV-1Q handles the camera (Figure 5),
which is an Omnivision OV9655 1.3
megapixel sensor. For those of us that
don’t structure our thoughts with spec
numbers, that basically means that
the bot is outfitted with a nice color
camera. The SRV-1Q seems to be
nothing but quality through and
through, and you get what you pay
for. The bot comes with a price tag of
a little under $500, which really seems
quite reasonable given the caliber of
the robot. A fine chassis, robust
motors, a stunning camera, an able
processor, and more software than
one could shake the proverbial stick at
all seem like excellent justifications for
22 SERVO 11.2008
Page 22
FIGURE 3
something that is a much better use
of one’s money than the newest
gaming console.
My Robot is More
Well-Traveled than
Your Robot
We were eager to test out the
capabilities of the SRV-1Q, but the
idea of tackling a robot without the
comfort of a software CD did seem a
little daunting. We wanted to get an
idea of the bot’s capabilities and limi-
tations before we tackled it ourselves,
so we looked to the place where any
roboticist would look if they were in
the same situation – Australia!
A fun showcase of the Surveyor
robot’s abilities comes from a
somewhat unexpected place – the
folks at the Australian branch of the
energy company British Petroleum.
The BP Explorer is a website that
allows users from all over the world
to drive a Surveyor robot around a
diorama of a cityscape and the
surrounding countryside. Not only is
this a cool way to
FIGURE 7
FIGURE 6
FIGURE 4
demonstrate the wireless capabilities
of the Surveyor, but there is also
something intangibly empowering
about controlling a robot that lives in
another continent. The project also
earns kudos for the camera on the
Surveyor, which gives a clear color
picture of the surroundings that is
detailed enough to read model
billboards scattered around the
environment that offer clues to a
secret message.
Why would these intrepid bots be
given a playground by an energy
company, anyway? Apparently, the
demonstration is meant as a way to
spotlight the company’s environmen-
tal initiatives. The SRV-1Qs in the BP
Explorer all run off of batteries that
are charged with BP solar panels. For
that reason, the bots only run during
the daytime (in Australia).
When the website debuted, the
little bots were so popular that the
waiting time to use one of the five
was several hours. When we surfed
the website, however, there was no
wait time at all and we were able to
drive around at our leisure. After a
couple of rounds, we felt that we
had become sufficiently acquainted
with our robot’s Australian cousins,
so we turned back to the home front
with renewed excitement and pride
in the capabilities of the
robot.
We personally think
it is a great thing to see
the adventuresome
bot involved in the
environmental cause,
especially when it takes
FIGURE 5 the form of a fun and
interactive game.
TwinTweaks-Nov-edited.qxd 10/6/2008 3:32 PM
Even Robots can have
Dog Day Afternoons
After our international adventure,
we were even more excited to tackle
our SRV-1Q. Even with the SRV-1Q in
pre-built form, there is some minimal
assembly required. All you need to do
it attach the antenna to the bot, and
while this might sound like a trivial
task it turned into something much
more dramatic. Normally, the antenna
should just screw into place near the
stern of the robot, but our parts had a
bit of a compatibility problem (Figure
6). The connector on the antenna and
the connector on the bot were both
male, with the connector pins to
prove it. It was only a minor setback,
and after a quick trip to our favorite
electronics shack we were ready to
proceed. We acquired a male-to-male
connector (Figure 7), but we hoped
that the extended length of the
connection wouldn’t interfere with the
bot’s nifty treads.
To begin the process, we screwed
the new connector into the one on
the antenna. When we weren’t sure if
it was fitting nicely, we unscrewed the
male-to-male connector, and we were
surprised to see the pin from the
antenna come with it.
And with that, our problem had
been solved, and the antenna screwed
onto the robot just as it should have.
We were assured by the folks at
Surveyor labs that this mix-up only
occurred in a small number of kits,
but if you were to run across one of
FIGURE 8
Page 23
them you can perform a much quicker
fix than the one we did. The pin in
the connector on the antenna came
out so easily because the connector
was socketed and it wasn’t soldered
to a wire. Since this is the case, some
needle-nosed pliers can be used to
simply extract the pin with no ill
effects. With the assembly of the
robot finally finished, we let the little
bot charge up its Li-poly battery pack
before we made our first attempt at
teleoperation.
Smooth Teleoperator
Don’t be fooled into thinking that
the SRV-1Q doesn’t come with any
goodies just because it doesn’t come
with a CD. The bot comes equipped
with some handy firmware that makes
wireless operation over the computer
a snap. To get everything fully config-
ured, you’ll have to visit the Surveyor
website (www.surveyor.com). The
Surveyor website provides clear and
concise instructions on how to get
started with your bot. There are a
plethora of software applications to
choose from, but we went with the
highly recommended Java console.
The Java console can be downloaded
for free, and after the generic
installation procedure you’ll have a
screen pop up as in Figure 8.
After opening the console, the
next task was to connect to the
robot’s wireless network (Figure 9).
An “SRV1” network conveniently
popped up, and connecting was no
FIGURE 9
Surveyor’s Travels
problem. After we were connected,
the mysterious purple smear on the
Java console was replaced by an
image of our dorm room desk. While
this might seem random, it was
because the robot was looking at our
desk. Before we could officially get to
playtime, we had to configure the
Matchport connection for easy access.
This actually involves a somewhat
lengthy process, but roboticists are
carefully guided through the steps
with generous screenshots and clear
directions.
With all of the network nuts and
bolts taken care of, we were ready to
get going (Figure 10). Some of the
controls on the Java console are pretty
straightforward. Directional arrows
control the basic movements, while a
familiar red octagon causes the bot to
freeze in its tracks. Some controls,
however, are a bit more enigmatic.
Buttons labeled fast and slow can
control the motor speed of the robot,
and the different sized rectangles on
the right side of the console can
change the resolution of the screen.
Don’t think that you could get a huge
screen for nothing though – there’s a
corresponding trade-off in frame rate.
In addition to the screen with the mys-
terious button, the command prompt
window also pops up with the Java
console (Figure 11), and it provides
even more enigmatic feedback that is
sure to delight programmers.
Driving around our own SRV-1Q
was quite like our experience with the
Australian robot, but without the lag
FIGURE 10
SERVO 11.2008 23
TwinTweaks-Nov-edited.qxd 10/6/2008 3:36 PM
Twin Tweaks ...
FIGURE 11
time. The scenery of the miniature
cityscape was replaced by the scenery
of our dorm room. The quality of the
camera image was stunning, and the
treaded robot was also deceptively
zippy. One important caveat, however,
is that the robot will continue to move
in the direction specified until another
command is given. We figured that
the driving would be like that of the
Australian bot – pressing a directional
button would cause the bot to move
in that direction for a time proportional
to the time that the button was
pressed. This was not the case, and
the unexpected learning curveball
caused the over-eager robot to
crash into a wall. Thanks to its robust
construction, no damage was
inflicted, but we were more careful
from then on out.
After a bit of practice, the driving
becomes a bit more intuitive, but
slower motor speed is definitely
helpful for navigating obstacle-laden
areas and for enjoying the scenery.
The frame rate of the camera is also
admirable, because it is good enough
so that surveying your space doesn’t
become a motion sickness inducing
blurry mess.
The robot even has a built-in
FIGURE 13
24 SERVO 11.2008
Page 24
FIGURE 12
software module that allows several
computers to view the output from
the camera, so your robot can have a
nice audience as it surveys the land.
Your Telepresence
is Requested
For those who can study a robot’s
behavior like a patient naturalist and
determine how the bot could be
improved, the Surveyor website also
offers the source code for the Java
console (which is open source). The
site even encourages tinkerers to mess
around with the code and share their
improvements. In addition to the Java
console, there is also a Python console
(also open source, of course), and the
website has links to all of the most
popular third party software like
Roborealm and Microsoft Robotics
Studio. The popular platform
Roborealm can be acquired for free
at www.roborealm.com. The down-
load was quick and painless, and soon
we were ready to see what else the
SRV-1Q had to offer (Figure 12).
The Roborealm program sports an
interface that looks fairly intimidating,
even if only because it has such a
plethora of options for image
FIGURE 14
processing. There are options for edge
and blob detection, and also a myriad
of other things to keep even the most
technical of tinkerers occupied for
days on end. Some of the options give
some quite interesting images, from
the minimalistic skeleton to the unflat-
tering Sobel edge convolution (Figure
13) to the trippy Canny edge detection
method (Figure 14). You can even turn
the object of your robot’s attention
into a cartoon using the whimsical
Kuwahara variance filter (Figure 15).
For all of those folks unfamiliar
with the refined mathematical
techniques of image processing
(ourselves included), the numerous
methods presented by Roborealm are
a great motivation for some intellectu-
al development. You can drag your
cursor over each option for a very
brief description, but this will probably
only serve to whet your intellectual
appetite.
You’ll be asking yourself why the
Sobel edge convolution creates such a
scary picture, and a little research will
reveal that the Sobel method analyzes
the image gradient and takes the
areas of highest gradient as the likely
edges of the image. Then, you have
to look up what an image gradient is,
and you’ll find out that it is a gradual
blend of colors that changes in
discretizable steps from low values
(white) to high values (black) of color.
Then you’ll want to learn about the
trippy Canny method, and the
wonderful floodgates of curiosity will
have been officially opened. After an
exciting whitewater ride, you’ll find
that you are much more well-versed
in the subtleties of image processing
than you were before.
FIGURE 15
TwinTweaks-Nov-edited.qxd 10/6/2008 3:36 PM Page 25

Surveyor’s Travels

But just in case image processing
isn’t your cup of tea, the Surveyor
can also run autonomously using
interpreted C programming. Programs
are stored in Flash memory. There are
special robot commands and the
protocol is also available on the
website. The robot-specific commands
even include those for a “wander
mode” and a “swarm mode.” There
are entertaining videos on the website
that demonstrate these. And, as you
might have guessed, there is also
sample code that can be acquired
through the website, and — by
extension — the community of SRV-1Q
users that frequent it.
design to reality. The open source
mentality seems to have been truly
adopted by the folks at Surveyor, with
all of the shared software, hacks, and
enthusiasm for creating a better and
more interesting product.
The Surveyor Labs website
features a link to a video about the
Google Lunar X Prize that talks about
the new contest to send a robot to
the moon tasked with photographing
the Lunar Lander. With all of the
promise shown by the SRV-1Q and the
impressive community that is growing
around it, we wouldn’t be surprised to
see a robot like it end up on the
moon someday. SV
Special Thanks to
Zander Rose and Reason Bradley
of Inertia Labs and Howard Gordon
of Surveyor Labs.

Open Source
Opening Doors
Perhaps the most exciting things
about the SRV-1Q are the possibilities.
In the space of this article, we have
hardly even scratched the surface of
this bot. It can run autonomously, it
can archive the video it takes, you can
even get a bunch of SRV-1Qs together
to make a swarm. The bot can be
expanded with more sensors, and it
can even be given “stereo vision” with
the addition of another camera. Hacks
like stereo vision and other things that
score highly on the cool factor scale Experience a Faster Way to Search for Components!
are all shared on the Surveyor Labs
Jameco Electronics’ new catalog and Web codes allow you to quickly jump
website, and a Robot User Forum
enhanced Jameco.com website are two from catalog to website to view additional
encourages hackers and hobbyists to tools that are designed to work together specifications, application notes, photos
share their latest projects. to give electronic professionals faster and more products. You'll find exactly
All of the possibilities are made access to the hottest components in the what you're looking for without having to
reachable because the bot is open industry. wade through hundreds of thousands of
products on a complicated website or
source. Not only can tinkerers mess Color coded references throughout the
wielding a twenty pound catalog.
around with the source code, but catalog assist you in analyzing a wide
range of brand choices (from franchise With a flip of the page or a click of the
schematics and other diagrams of the sourced to house brands to factory mouse, you have all the tools you need
robot are also freely available. Users overruns) offering you more pricing at your fingertips. Reach for Jameco first
can even download a Solidworks options than you'll see anywhere else. and order your catalog today.
3D model of the SRV-1Q from the
website so they can truly get an idea
of how this robot has progressed from

For more information, go to:

Order your
www.surveyor.com web-enabled
www.bpexplorer.com.au/ catalog today!
www.roborealm.com
www.analog.com
www.cyberbotics.com/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/ Call 1-800-831-4242 or Visit www.Jameco.com/Speed for the ride of your life!
en-us/robotics/default.aspx

SERVO 11.2008 25
CombatZone-edited.qxd 10/7/2008 3:36 PM Page 26

Featured This Month:

Features
26 BUILD REPORT:
30 Pound Combat Robot
— Mitch by Ray Billings BUILD REP RT
28 MANUFACTURING: 30 Pound Combat Robot — Mitch
Even More Things to
Consider When Building a ● by Ray Billings
Fighting Robot by Mike Jeffries

33 PARTS IS PARTS:
F requently at events, I am
inundated with questions on
how to get started in combat
reason this bot couldn’t have
been built with a simple drill
press, or even a hand drill and
Chain Length Calculator robotics. I’m always honored by basic hand tools. Most of the
and Chain Path Visualizer the requests, and enjoy the material used was inexpensive,
by Kevin Berry enthusiasm that potentially new as well. And the best part: This
builders bring to the sport. But machine was very effective,
due to the violent nature of winning the 30 pound division at
35 A Brief History of WAR some of my more high-powered the 2008 RoboGames event;
by Robert Farrow creations, I always feel hesitant to going undefeated in the class.
tell a 10-year-old how to build a I started out with four of the
heavyweight spinner! I usually basic 20:1 36 mm planetary gear
Events recommend something simpler to motors from Banebots. They are
30 Aug/Sep 2008 Results and start out with — like a wedge — only 1.5” tall, allowing me to
but up until recently, I didn’t have create a very low profile robot
Nov/Dec 2008 Upcoming
an example of my own to display. and still have decent power.
Events Well, all that changed
for the RoboGames
31 EVENT REPORT: event this year.
Introducing Team
Robot Battles 2008
Hardcore’s first wedge
by Charles Guan — Team Test Bot
bot: Mitch.
Mitch was created
ROBOT PROFILE – Top almost completely from
Ranked Robot This Month: off-the-shelf parts and,
although there were
34 Limblifter by Kevin Berry some areas that were
machined specifically for This is Mitch, after winning the 30 pound class at
RoboGames. You can see some of the scars on the
assembly, there is no wedge from all the action.

26 SERVO 11.2008
CombatZone-edited.qxd 10/7/2008 3:37 PM Page 27

Paired with the new wheels

that Banebots just
released, this made for a
relatively inexpensive and
responsive drivetrain. I also
used the bearing blocks
that Banebots sells to
support the drive shafts. I
ended up shortening the
This is the view of the shock mounting from the
output shafts of the gear underside. I used three rubber standoffs on each
motors about half an inch end. These really helped a lot to isolate the bot
from the big hits, and I credit a great deal of our This is an overhead view of the bot
to fit into this design. The success with Mitch to these isolators. with the titanium panel removed.
wheels extend out both the
bottom and top equally, allowing custom fan arrangement in the have to worry about weight. The
the bot to drive inverted. future. Radio control was provided back rail in Mitch was actually 1”
For battery power, I wanted by a Spektrum DX6 transmitter thick UHMW, although there would
something simple and didn’t want coupled with the BR6000 receiver. have been no reason I couldn’t have
to overvolt the motors too much. A 2.4 GHz system such as the used more of the aluminum in its
Overvolting is a very common Spektrum (or some other non- place. The truth is, I had the UHMW
method for improving the power frequency dependant system) is a laying around. Sometimes the
output of a DC motor, and frequently requirement for combat events at right part is whatever junk you have
combat builders will double (or the RoboGames. Many competitions on hand!
more) the rated voltage of a motor still allow the 75 MHz systems, so Top and bottom plates are
to get maximum power. But I this isn’t mandatory everywhere, but identical, and were made from 1/4”
wanted this machine to be if you are new to this sport and Lexan. This was also a matter of
dependable, with the least amount want to get equipment that you will convenience, since it was also mate-
of maintenance needed as possible. be using for the foreseeable future, rial I had on hand. I had considered
For that reason, I went with some I highly recommend some form of using some thinner titanium in
four cell lithium polymer batteries, spread spectrum system. Make sure constructing the top and bottom
for 14.8 volts. The motors are rated you get a receiver that correctly plates, but the Lexan made for a
for 12V, so I felt this was a good failsafes on all channels, such as the quick and easy build. For the final
compromise between reliability and BR6000. There are some systems combat-ready machine, I ended up
power. I used a pair of 2200 mAh that only failsafe on the throttle making an extra titanium plate to
batteries from Hobby City. channel. The remaining electronics place on top of the top Lexan plate
For speed control, I used the in the system are a small battery to protect the internals. I machined
standard for most of the larger eliminator circuit from Park, and the in a .25” recess around the inside of
weight categories: the Victor 883 smallest main power switch sold by the frame rails, so that the top and
units from IFI Robotics. Since these Team Whyachi. A list of the parts bottom panels were set into the
are rated for 60 amps continuous at used is included here. rails. This was the only step that
24 volts, I felt I could run them at The front and side rails are 2” required any fancy machining
the lower voltage (and probably tall by 1” thick 6061 aluminum. I equipment, but could have easily
nowhere near the maximum amps) could afford to use such thick
This is a view of the interior with all panels
without the fans. This was necessary material since the bot was going to removed, showing the layout. You can
pretty much see all of the components.
due to the extremely low clearance be very compact and I would not The block of foam towards the top houses
inside the bot. There were few the receiver and battery eliminator.
problems with this setup,
although we never actually
stalled the drivetrain, which I
suspect would be an issue if
this ever happened. I may
consider making some kind of
The bolt holes for the motors were
countersunk. This certainly isn’t required,
since the clearance top and bottom was
more than sufficient for the bolt heads to
stick out. I simply didn’t want an opponent
to be able to “catch” a bolt head that was
attached to the motor/gearbox assembly
and possibly damage it.

SERVO 11.2008 27
CombatZone-edited.qxd 10/7/2008 3:38 PM Page 28

providing these as a guide

to making a simple and
effective combat robot
which you can copy
exactly or modify as you
see fit. The frame and
drivetrain minus the
The wheels from Banebots get fantastic traction, but
they are very soft rubber and wear quickly. Buy spares! wedge weighs in at
about 15 pounds, giving
and bottom plates match the plenty of weight for any extras you
exterior dimensions. The only may feel like adding. Our wedge
A more close-up view of the speed controllers. critical dimension was to make weighed in at ~12 pounds, giving
I have used some zip strips to try to manage sure the distance from the top to us a combat weight of slightly less
the mess of wires that invariably comes
from wiring a bot. Don’t be afraid to tie bottom plates was 1.5” to than 27 pounds.The wedge on
down everything that you think will move
around. Nobody will ever give you a bad correspond to the height of the Mitch is constructed of .25” 4130
time after you’ve won a match and tell you motors and bearing blocks. steel, which was cut and welded
that you have too many wire ties!
Available on the SERVO website into the final shape. A big part of
been avoided if needed. You could (www.servomagazine.com) are Mitch’s success is due to the shock
simply use 1.5” tall aluminum for the AutoCAD drawings (and PDF mounting I used for the wedge. A
the frame rails, and made the top files for those without access to wedge that is more than 1/3 the
AutoCAD) with the specifications on bot’s weight is obviously substantial
Mitch’s construction, not including for the class, but the shock mounts
the wedge mounts. With 1” thick really helped isolate the chassis of
aluminum across the front and the bot from the big hits from all
sides, there is plenty of opportunity the nasty spinners in the 30 pound
to mount a wedge in almost any weight class. The rubber isolators
fashion you would like. I am are the only item I cannot find you
a link to the exact part I used. I
For a simple, quick, and cheap locating
method for the wheels, I simply stacked bought these surplus years ago and
washers on each side of the wheel. This kept
the wheel centered in the wheel opening, but like most surplus items, once they
allowed some side to side movement of the are gone you can never find them
wheel on the axle.
again. McMaster-Carr sells many
Parts List rubber isolation mounts though, so
you can find similar items, such as
ITEM SUPPLIER LINK their part #9376K39. Mitch proved
• Drive motors http://banebots.com/pc/MP-36XXX-545/MP-36020-545
• Wheels http://banebots.com/c/WHB-KS3-298
to be a tough little machine, and
• Bearing blocks http://banebots.com/pc/MOTOR-ACC/PB-S3751-BB was a blast to build and drive. Top
• Batteries www.hobbycity.com speed was manageable at around
• Speed controllers www.robotmarketplace.com/products/IFI-V883.html 8 mph, and was easily controlled. If
• Power switch www.teamwhyachi.com/MS1.htm you have any questions on the parts
• BEC www.robotmarketplace.com/products/0-PBEC1.html and materials used, I can be reached
• Radio www.robotmarketplace.com/products/0-SPM6600.html
at ray@hardcorerobotics.com. SV

MANUFACTURING:
Even More Things to C nsider
When Building a Fighting Robot
● by Mike Jeffries

I n previous issues of SERVO, I’ve

talked about weapon and drive
systems in robot combat. There are
a lot of important things to consider
that don’t fit under either of those
umbrellas but still merit considera-

28 SERVO 11.2008
CombatZone-edited.qxd 10/7/2008 3:39 PM Page 29

Beta uses chain drive to Checkmate uses a strong baseplate

power its electric hammer. for component mounting.

Crocbot uses car

style steering to
maneuver in the
arena.

tion when building your bot.
Car vs. Tank Steering
Most robots use tank steering,
which is where each side of the
drive system can go forward or
backward independently allowing
the robot to go forward, backward,
or turn in place. Car steering works
just the way it sounds. The robot
will drive like a large, metal remote-
controlled car. One common point
of confusion in tank steering is
turning while reversing. With the
way tank steering works, when
you’re turning left from standing
still, the right side wheels are going
forward and the left side wheels are
going backward. When you’re
turning left while moving forward,
the right side wheels are spinning
faster than the left side in the
forward direction. When going in
reverse, however, the left wheels are
spinning faster backwards than the
right, causing it to rotate to the left
while moving to the right.
External vs. Internal
Wheels
Internal wheels are better
protected and able to be supported
on both sides. External wheels will
prevent the robot from being hung
up on a competitor’s armor if it
gets lifted off the ground. External
wheels can be hit easily by the
opposing robot’s weapons and
are subject to many more direct
impacts. Which option is best
depends on both the design of the
robot and which features are most
important to it.
Belts, Chains, and
Gears
You’ve got to get the power
from your motors to your wheels
and weapons somehow. Belts,
chains, and gears are your three
options if the motor can’t have the
wheel or weapon attached directly
to it.
Belts are fairly lightweight and
can transmit power over large gaps.
There are multiple types of belts to
choose from but most use tension
and friction to provide enough grip
on the pulleys on each side of the
system to transmit power.
Chains are stronger and heavier
than belts, but serve essentially
the same function as belts. They
transmit power from one shaft to
another over a gap. Chains need to
be aligned more precisely than belts
due to their inflexibility. If they are
not aligned well, the chain is likely
to fall off or break.
Gears require the highest
precision of the three options and
are also able to be the most
efficient. They are not, however,
able to span the same distances
that belts or chains can. Tight toler-
ances and proper pitch selection
can result in a nearly indestructible
power transfer system, however, if
the pitch is too small or the gears
are too loose or tight, you’re just
asking for catastrophic failure.
Chassis
At the core of every competitive
robot is a strong chassis. It doesn’t
matter how powerful your spinning
weapon is or how high your arm
can flip other robots if the chassis
can’t handle the forces that act on
it both internally and externally. A
small number of construction
methods make up the majority of
combat robot chassis today.
The first method is to use
square, tubular, or right angle metal

Grue uses Stewie has an aluminum

tank style unibody chassis.
steering to
maneuver in
the arena.

Sewer Snake has external wheels.

SERVO 11.2008 29
CombatZone-edited.qxd 10/7/2008 3:40 PM
Storm II has internal wheels.
beams to form a strong skeletal
chassis. Armor and components are
then mounted to the chassis. This
arrangement allows for easy
replacement of damaged armor and
components, and easy access at any
angle. The main downside of this
type of chassis is that unless it’s very
carefully designed it will be heavier
than the other chassis styles.
The second type of chassis uses
the frame itself as armor. Instead of
working like a skeleton, this chassis
functions more like the shell on a
crab. A strong outer body with rigid
internal supports holds all the parts
and provides for a very strong
Village Idiot has a
skeletal chassis.
Results and Upcoming Events
Results Aug 12 –
Sep 14, 2008
H ORD Fall 2008 was held by the
Ohio Robot
Club in Strongsville,
OH, on September
13th. Twenty-three
bots were entered.
30 SERVO 11.2008
Page 30
Tillah uses belts to power
its spinning drum.
defense. This style tends to be
lighter than a skeletal chassis but
often leads to difficulty in replacing
or accessing parts.
The third type of chassis functions
similarly to the second, but relies on
a strong base plate for component
mounting. The armor normally is a
shell that can be completely
removed for easy access to most of
the components. The one difficulty
with a chassis like this is making it
strong enough to hold up to com-
bat while keeping the weight low.
These are only a few of the
most popular chassis styles. There
are more options of varying
complexity and many hybrids of
the three mentioned that have seen
success in robot combat.
Armor
Choosing the right armor is
often the difference between
winning and losing in robot combat.
Do you go with the stronger,
heavier steel? Do you choose the
light, but easily cut polycarbonate?
EVENTS
Upcoming Events
Nov-Dec 2008
R oaming
Robots will
hold an event
in Maidstone,
England on
November 22nd.
Totally Offensive
uses gears to drive
around the arena.
Perhaps aluminum or titanium
armor is a better fit for the job.
You are not limited to a single
choice in armor. Often robots will
be heavily armored in areas the
builders think will be subject to the
most stress and have something
that acts essentially as a dust cover
for less vital areas. When choosing
which material, how much, and
where, you should look at the
robots you’ll likely face. If there are
very few robots with hammer
weapons, top armor is less of a
priority. With most arenas in use
today, there isn’t much need for
thick bottom armor unless it is a
structural part of your robot.
Layering different materials can
work very well in robot combat.
Having a thin layer of a material
resistant to cutting over a thicker
impact resistant material that cuts
easily can act to minimize the
negatives while keeping weight and
costs low. SV
All photos courtesy of BuildersDB
(www.buildersdb.com).
A ntweight Benelux Championship
will be held by Dutch Robot
Games in the Netherlands on
CombatZone-edited.qxd 10/7/2008 3:41 PM Page 31

November 1st, and a large

bot event will be held on
November 6th.
R obots Live will
hold events at
Reading on November
15th, and Birmingham on November
22nd. Please go to www.robots
live.co.uk for more details. SV

EVENT REPORT
Rob t Battles 2008
● by Charles Guan — Team Test Bot

W hat’s the second longest-

running robotic combat
competition ever? It’s neither
The 12 pound battle
royale at Robot
Battles 2008.

BattleBots nor Robot Wars. In

fact, you have probably never
even heard of it. It’s the Robot
Battles series of events, which
held its first tournament in 1991
and has been held every year
since then at the Dragon*Con
sci-fi and fantasy convention
every Labor Day weekend in Robot Battles, the longest-running indie
Atlanta, GA. What has kept it robot fighting event. especially when one robot runs
going all these years is its complete head-on into the floor hazard (a
disregard for everything a weapons at home, because the grinder-powered spinning rubber
mainstream robot combat fights are open-air on a raised wheel with gratuitous protrusions)
competition holds dear. stage, sumo style. That means good and is subsequently sprayed across
The MC of the event is a former driving far outweighs your weapon the arena.
radio disc jockey and newspaper choice, and a fair percentage of For the 2008 event, 29 little
editor that occasionally makes fun matches are actually decided when ‘bots fought at MicroBattles and 20
of the audience (which has a one robot simply careens off the large robots competed at the main
disturbingly high proportion of stage. Robot MicroBattles, which tournament. The record number
Stormtroopers). The tournament began in 2003, caters to the of small ‘bots necessitated running
itself is half robots and half stand-up smallest combat classes: the one- the tournament single-elimination,
comedy. The atmosphere is relaxed, pounders and three-pounders. This instead of the usual double in order
and matches are often re-run just tournament is enclosed-arena and to fit the event within its given time
because the builders or audience with the full set of Robot Fighting slot. The audience packed both
members feel like it. The essence League-approved weaponry allowed. events to standing-room-only levels,
of Robot Battles is that of robot The level of destruction and energy and the convention twice closed the
combat before the glamour of is much higher. The audience loves large ballroom in which the main
cameras, cash prizes, and minor shredded parts, flying sparks, and tournament was held because the
pop culture icons.
There are two separate Thirty pound robots Jaws (right) and Vorpal
Bunny Foo-Foo (left) ensnare their weapons.
tournaments at Robot Battles.
The main tournament
happens on Labor Day
Monday — the last day of the
convention — and is for 12
pound and 30 pound robots.
The tournament is double-
elimination, and each match
is best-two-out-of-three. Leave Überclocker (left) and
Poulan Rouge (right) tangle in
your high-energy kinetic the 30 pound elimination rounds.

SERVO 11.2008 31
CombatZone-edited.qxd 10/7/2008 3:42 PM Page 32

MC Kelly Lockhart The small arena is enclosed

entertains the crowd by 1/4” polycarbonate sheet
at the Robot Battles and features drop-out pits and
Tournament on a spinning wheel hazard.
Monday.

number of people watching had
exceeded the hotel’s fire code limit.
The MicroBattles event on
Sunday saw the first irreparable
arena damage at any Robot Battles
event, when the spinning wheel
hazard was sheared off in the
three-pound class Battle Royale. A
solid slam by three-pounder Cloud
of Suspicion broke the mounting
hub off the wheel, sending it
bouncing around the arena floor.
Builders and audience alike were
stoked, and the combat arena goes
back to the shop for a completely
new arena hazard to be debuted
later this year. In a move that
straddled the point intersection
between confidence, arrogance, and
insanity, Cloud of Suspicion’s builder
strapped six pounds of dead weight
on top of his robot and returned
Monday to fight in the 12 pound
division.
This year’s event also saw the
introduction of a new design to the
combat stage. The open stage
format of the competition is
particular well-suited to a grabber-
lifter type design; one which can
manipulate the opponent by holding
it completely off the floor, not
merely breaking its traction. Yet,
for as long as the event has run,
nobody has built such a machine.
This year, two grabber-lifter robots
entered into the 30 pound class:
Jaws, from Team Stingray, and my
own entry, Überclocker. Jaws did
well, advancing through the loser’s
brackets after losing its first round
to the eventual 30 pound class
champion. Due to some poor design
on my part, Überclocker was
plagued with mechanical problems,
and I had to repair the bot quite
literally after every match. Despite
losing after the first round, it was
able to put on a good show for the
audience by performing a few body
slams on opponents.
The perennial winners returned
again this year, with the 12 pound
class final match a repeat of last
year’s. Dale’s Homemade Robots
swept all the categories at the
Monday tournament, except for the
12 pound Battle Royale. Other
historically successful teams
including Blade Robotics and Evil
Robotics also placed. Here’s the list
of champions and runners-up:
• First place 1 lb class: Gilbert, Team
Meatheads
• Second place 1 lb class: Misdirected
Pedestrian, Team Meatheads
• First place 3 lb class: Nuclear
Kitten 5, Team Test Bot
• Second place 3 lb class: Ringo,
Evil Robotics
• First place 12 lb class: Omegaforce
2, Dale’s Homemade Robots
• Second place 12 lb class: Nicole
Richie, Team Shenanigans

Overthruster knocks Jaws off the

stage using its innovative automatic
A clean gash in a 1 lb flipper mechanism, moving on to take
robot’s titanium front plow. the 30 pound division championship.

32 SERVO 11.2008
CombatZone-edited.qxd 10/7/2008 3:43 PM
• First place 30 lb class:
Overthruster, Dale’s Homemade
Robots
• Second place 30 lb class: Scimitar,
Blade Robotics
For 2009, the Robot Battles
main tournament is moving to a
larger ballroom to handle the
increasingly large audience. With
Dragon*Con hosting a Robotics
program track specifically to
introduce more people to robots
and robot fighting, the competition
is only going to grow larger and
more intense. So, if you’re tired of
the same old arena, consider
coming to Atlanta over Labor Day
weekend 2009 and checking out
not only the Robot Battles
competition, but Dragon*Con as a
whole. If you are already attending
PARTS IS PARTS:
Chain Length Calculat r
and Chain Path Visualizer
A n endless source of information
on bot building is the RFL forum
on Delphi Forums (www.chief
delphi.com/media/papers/1598).
A recent thread had a great
discussion about a software tool —
Dr. Joe’s Chain Length Calculator,
and the accompanying Chain Path
Visualizer. This handy tool lets a
builder input sprocket and chain
data (up to 12 sprockets!) and out
pops the geometry to build the rig.
The Excel front end drives a macro
called Goal Seek, that does loops of
“what if” analysis to optimize the
design. The outputs and a graphic
visualize the answer, while the raw
outputs are on other tabs.
I haven’t built any chain driven
mechanisms myself that would
require this level of calculations,
Page 33
the Con, and have
(somehow) missed us
for the past 18 years,
then you know what to
do next year. Here’s
some resource links to
get you started:
• www.robotbattles.
com is the event’s
website. Look here for
the rules, photo
galleries, and online
community. Make sure Überclocker holds Scimitar perilously
close to the stage’s edge.
to join the email list!
As a bit of interesting trivia: The
• www.dragoncon.org is the oldest robot fighting competition —
website of the hosting convention, Critter Crunch — began in 1987 at
Dragon*Con, your one-stop shop the MileHiCon in Denver, CO. Robot
for any sort of science fiction, Battles is a direct descendant of
comics, fantasy, role-playing, anime, Critter Crunch, with almost identical
subcultures, and much more. rule sets. SV
● by Kevin Berry
but according to the folks on
both forums (RFL/Delphi and
Cheifdelphi), it’s both useful and
2) I move my “idler” up and down
(or left and right) the amount I
plan to build in to my adjuster so
accurate. that I can tell if I can actually
Dr. Joe Johnson, the creator, tighten the chain.
has a few comments worth noting:
Alternatively, I use it to see if I
“This is a tool I use to get my can swap sprockets and still tighten
chain adjuster travels right and to my chain with the different ratio
give my “gut” a chance to “see” the (this is a non-obvious calculation
chain path before I commit to it in at times).” SV
metal. It is not a perfect
tool. It does not have any Dr. Joe’s Chain Path Visualizer.
way to enter a slider, for
example.
Here is how I use it
most often:
1) I lay out my chain path
(counte-clockwise order
around the chain).
SERVO 11.2008 33
CombatZone-edited.qxd 10/7/2008 3:44 PM Page 34

ROBOT PR FILE
TOP RANKED ROBOT THIS MONTH
● by Kevin Berry
Top Ranked Combat Bots
History Score Ranking
Limblifter – Currently Ranked #1
Weight
Class Bot Win/Loss Weight Class Bot Win/Loss

150 grams VD 26/7 150 grams Micro Drive 10/3

1 pound Dark Pounder 44/5 1 pound Dark Pounder 23/3

1 kg Roadbug 27/10 1 kg Roadbug 11/4

3 pounds 3pd 48/21 3 pounds Limblifter 12/1

6 pounds G.I.R. 17/2 6 pounds G.I.R. 11/2

12 pounds Solaris 42/12 12 pounds Surgical Strike 19/7

15 pounds Humdinger 2 29/2 15 pounds Humdinger 2 29/2

30 pounds Helios 31/6 30 pounds Billy Bob 12/4

30 (sport) Bounty Hunter 9/1 30 (sport) Bounty Hunter 9/1

Wedge of
60 pounds 43/5 60 pounds K2 14/2
Doom Historical Ranking: #6
120 pounds Devil's Plunger 53/15 120 pounds Touro 14/2 Class: 3 pound Beetleweight
220 pounds Sewer Snake 46/13 220 pounds Original Sin 12/5 Team: Team GuavaMoment
340 pounds SHOVELHEAD 39/15 340 pounds Ziggy 6/0
Builder(s): Brendan McClure
Location: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
390 pounds MidEvil 28/9 390 pounds MidEvil 3/0

History Score is calculated by Current Ranking is calculated by

BotRank Data Total Fights Wins Losses
performance at all events known performance at all known events, using Lifetime History 18 15 3
to BotRank data from the last 18 months Current Record 13 12 1
Rankings as of September 14, 2008 Events 4

● Armor: 1/8” 6061 Aluminum,

L imblifter has competed at
Kilobots X, WBX-IV, Kilobots XI,
and WBX-3. Details are:
1/16” garolite.

● Drive: 4x 20:1 25 mm Banebots

1/4” UHMW-PE.

gearmotors, FF-180 motor. ● Radio system: Futaba 8U.

● Overall configuration: Four wheel
drive with lifting arm that can ● Wheels: 2” Lectra Lite flites. ● Future plans: 60 lb version of
go 360 degrees around the Limblifter.
frame. ● Drive ESC: 2x Banebots 3-9 ESC.
● Design philosophy: Know your
● Frame: 1/4” UHMW-PE and ● Drive batteries: 1320 mAh 7.4V strengths and weaknesses, and
Thunderpower Lipoly. build accordingly.

● Weapon type: 360 degree ● Builders bragging opportunity:

flipping arm.
● Weapon power: Same as drive.
● Weapon motor: 256:1 28 mm
Banebots gearmotor, RS-385 motor.
● Weapon controller: Banebots
5-18 ESC.
#1 ranked Beetleweight on
BotRank.com! SV
Photos and information are courtesy of
Dennis Beck. All fight statistics are courtesy
of BotRank (www.botrank.com) as of
September 14, 2008. Event attendance data
is courtesy of BotRank and The Builder’s
Database (www.buildersdb.com) as of
September 14, 2008.

34 SERVO 11.2008
CombatZone-edited.qxd 10/7/2008 3:45 PM
A BRIEF HIST RY OF WAR
W AR has much of what you
expect — flying shrapnel,
destruction, winners and losers, but
unlike real war, Western Allied
Robotics competitions are always
good natured fun. The organization
currently has a 12 x 16 foot steel
and polycarbonate arena capable of
containing powerful 30 lb robots,
but WAR had a much simpler start.
A lot of early BattleBot builders
came out of the Pacific Northwest.
After the first season of BattleBots
appeared on TV, a dedicated fan
contacted several local builders to put
on a robot demonstration at a regional
science fiction convention. The builders
had a great time showing off their
robots and talking to people who were
interested in getting involved. Near
the end of the show, Brett Dawson
of team UVGScorpion brought out
two small robots and put them on
the ground. One was a four-wheel
wedge and the other was a horizontal
spinner. He needed someone to drive
the wedge robot so he handed the
controls of the wedge over to me.
Over the next five minutes, Brett and
I battled it out with cheering crowds.
As Brett schooled me on the fine
arts of robot destruction, it was
clear from the crowd’s reaction that
the robots did not need to be big to
generate the same excitement we
had experienced at BattleBots.
A small scale fighting robot com-
petition was scheduled for April 2002
at Gasworks Park in Seattle. Brett built
a 6 x 6 foot wood arena with polycar-
bonate walls to contain the robots.
Having an actual arena to compete
in made the event more than just talk
or a dream; it solidified things and the
race was on to design and build an
effective robot for the competition.
Computer scientists, artists,
teachers, and students made up the
group. Only about half of the original
competitors had ever built or competed
with robots before. Making things
Page 35
● by Robert Farrow
even more challenging, robots had
to weigh one pound or less. This was
a few years before cheap, reliable
speed controllers that would fit into
such small robots became readily
available. Even the experienced
builders had to figure out how to
make these things powerful but small.
Luckily, there was an active
online community to provide advice
and guidance to anyone who was
interested in building. People worked
modifying RC toys and co-opting
motors and electronics from RC air-
planes and cars to build their creations.
Well over a dozen robots competed
in the first event with robots that
ranged from remote control rats that
could only turn left, to powerful
spinner and wedge robots that were
solidly built. The first event was such
a solid hit with builders that everyone
wanted to do it again, and soon.
No one is sure of how the term
“War Lord” came about, but it was
the title thrust upon whoever
represented WAR with the larger
Robot Fighting League. The first
War Lord was Mike Morrow of
Team Juggerbot. He helped
organize WAR’s participation in the
Davinci Days festival in Corvallis, OR.
The robots fit right in with the
kinetic sculptures and creatively
engineered machines that drove the
theme of the festival. WAR held
another successful antweight
competition. Crowds were also
entertained by robots ranging from
60 to 340 pounds holding demon-
strations by pushing each other
around and attacking large objects
like washing machines. Because
there was no large arena to contain
the robots, no actual fighting
was allowed at the festival, but
afterwards a few of the competitors
gathered at a remote parking lot
and had a street fight with some of
the less hazardous bots.
One of WAR’s strengths as an
organization is that so many people
have stepped up to handle the events.
For years, Dylan Feral-McWhirter of
Team Evil Squirrel was the standing
War Lord and managed the arena
logistics. Adam Conus of Team
Wildcard and Scott Ferguson of
Team Whoopass held events in their
backyards and the term BotBQ was
coined to refer to fun with equal
parts robot fighting and grilled hot
dogs. As the events, robots, and
arena have gotten bigger, bigger
venues have been needed.
Rob Purdy of Team Gausswave
has grown WAR to the next level
as an organization. In 2006, WAR
became a branch of the Seattle
Robotics Society. The alliance made
sense given that Bill Bottenberg of
Team Crash was running a robot
class with young kids to get them
excited about science, engineering,
and learning about how things
work. As the new War Lord, Rob
also drove larger competitions
where hundreds of spectators could
enjoy the show, like at the Center
House at Seattle Center and in
association with large hobby shows.
As the organization has grown,
so have the robots. In the early days,
only the one pound antweight class
was supported. Now the focus is
largely on the three pound
Beetleweight and 12 pound Hobby
weight classes, although one pound
robots still compete. Whether large or
small, these events have brought the
regional robot building community
together and entertained thousands
of people. Where will WAR go from
here? It’s hard to say, but as the
sport continues to change, WAR
will be up to the challenge. SV
SERVO 11.2008 35
Blankenship.qxd 10/8/2008 2:56 PM Page 36
I f you visit a robot club or any
robotic function for that matter, it
is likely that you will meet someone
who is interested in humanoid robots.
Often, these enthusiasts are not par-
ticularly interested in building robots
that perform useful tasks. Instead, they
wish to build a robot that looks and
moves like a real person. They may or
may not want to endow their creation
with artificial intelligence (AI), but they
nearly always want to create the
illusion of life.
My interest in robotics has always
been very diversified and I too have
FIGURE 1.
Epoxy putty
was used
to turn a
Halloween
decoration
into this
head.
36 SERVO 11.2008
always been fascinated with the idea
of creating the illusion of life. Perhaps
that was a motivating factor that pushed
me towards another of my hobbies —
ventriloquism. It occurred to me that
the techniques used in puppet con-
struction might be of interest to many
hobbyists interested in animatronics.
A typical ventriloquist puppet is
carved from wood or molded from some
form of composite material such as
plastic wood or papier-mâché. In either
case, the head cavity must be open
enough to add mechanisms such as
pulleys and levers to control the move-
ment of the mouth and other
optional features such as moving
eyes, eyebrows, and eyelids.
If we are creating a robotic
puppet, the head must contain
all the moving parts found in
a standard puppet plus
appropriate actuators (motors
or solenoids) to effect the
movements. Since I wanted
the puppet to appear life-like,
it was important to animate
some body movements in
addition to the facial features.
In order to simplify the
programming aspects of the
project, servo motors were
by John Blankenship
and Samuel Mishal
used as actuators. This meant that the
overall size and weight of the puppet
had to be kept to a minimum. Keeping
the puppet small was no bother. To the
contrary, it was actually very intriguing.
Normally, a ventriloquist’s puppet has
to be big enough so that a hand can
be placed inside it to perform the
manipulations. With a small puppet,
everyone would know it was not being
controlled in the normal manner.
The puppet’s head in this project
is smaller than normal and it has to
contain even more mechanisms than
a standard puppet. If the head was
made from wood or composite materi-
als, the required wall thickness would
reduce the size of the head cavity
even further, adding to the problem.
One solution is to use a plastic head
from a doll or holiday decoration. The
thin plastic shell would provide the
maximum interior space.
I found a Halloween prop that
was the perfect size, but (as you
would expect) it had a ghoulish look
that was not appropriate. I used
epoxy putty to fill in unsightly
wrinkles, alter the lips, add teeth, and
lift the cheeks. Epoxy putty is as easy
to work with as clay — but for only 10
or 15 minutes — so don’t try to do too
Blankenship.qxd 10/8/2008 2:57 PM Page 37
FIGURE 2. The interior of the head is
cramped. The miniature servos shown
move the eyes and eyebrows. Notice
the magnets on each side.
much at once. Figure 1 shows the
altered head before painting.
The back of the head was cut
away to allow easy access to the
inside. Magnets were epoxied in
appropriate positions (on both pieces)
to hold the cut piece in place and still
allow easy removal for repairs.
Figure 2 shows the interior of the
head, which contains three miniature
servos: one for the mouth, one for the
eyes, and one for the eyebrows. The
details of how you mount your servos
depends on the features you want and
the space available in your puppet’s
head. It is also important to realize
that you can purchase servos in various
sizes with a wide variety of torque,
speed, and noise levels, so consider
your needs carefully.
Most of the bell
cranks, disconnects, and
other apparatus I use are
mechanisms designed for
model airplane construc-
tion and can be found in
many hobby stores. Your
local hardware store can
also be a great source for
small pulleys, lazy-susan
bearings, and such.
It is difficult to see
how the eye assembly is
constructed in Figure 2,
so Figure 3 shows an
external mockup to provide additional
detail. Eyes are easily made from wooden
balls that rotate on a bolt or rod. Stiff
wires protrude from the rear of each
eye and up through a plastic wafer
that ensures the eyes move together
based on the servo’s motion. It is
important to use a slot as shown instead
of a hole because the opposing rotational
motions can cause binding. The use of
the bell crank in Figure 2 allows the
motor to be mounted away from the
eyes. This can be very advantageous
when working in a confined space.
The puppet’s body is shown in
Figure 4 and is constructed primarily
from wood. Padding may be needed
to make the body look more natural
under the clothes. His full height is
28 inches. The legs are made from
PVC pipe. One leg of the pants is
pulled up to show the pipe.
FIGURE 5. The
head is hinged to
tilt forward and
mounted on a lazy-
suzan bearing to
handle rotation.
FIGURE 3. A puppet’s
eyes are easily motorized
for computer control.
Figure 5 shows how the head is
mounted on a hinge to allow a
forward tilt under control of the
neck-mounted servo. The lazy-susan
bearing gives the head the ability to
rotate. The neck is connected to a
servo mounted in the body using a
short piece of rubber hose. The
flexibility of the hose connection
prevents binding by allowing for
twisting and bending (much like
FIGURE 4. The
puppet’s body
is hinged to
allow side-to-
side tilt. The
legs are made
from PVC
pipe.
SERVO 11.2008 37
Blankenship.qxd 10/8/2008 2:58 PM Page 38

//——Constants FIGURE 9. Partial listing of the Real_Puppet.BAS

COMMS_PORT = 1 program for controlling the puppet.
JOYSTICK_PORT = 1
//====================================================================
MainProgram:
GoSub Instructions
GoSub SetUp
GoSub Initialize
GoSub Start_Control
GoSub FinishUp
Exit
//====================================================================
Read_Joystick:
GetButton btn
if btn == Buttons[0] then n=MsgBox(I_M)
if btn == Buttons[1] then Quit = true
joystickE JOYSTICK_PORT,jvalue
FIGURE 6. The body is hinged at the jx = jvalue[0,0]/(jvalue[0,2]-jvalue[0,1])
hips and moved with a servo. The jy = jvalue[1,0]/(jvalue[1,2]-jvalue[1,1])
jz = jvalue[2,0]/(jvalue[2,2]-jvalue[2,1])
Parallax servo controller simplifies jr = jvalue[3,0]/(jvalue[3,2]-jvalue[3,1])
the controlling program. jb = jvalue[6,0]
jhat = jvalue[7,0]
Return
//====================================================================
Start_Control:
while !Quit
GoSub Read_Joystick
//—-check buttons first (special movement combinations
if jb == B_Yes then GoSub Yes_Combo \ continue
if jb == B_No then GoSub No_Combo \ continue
if jb == B_Combo1 then GoSub Combo1 \ continue
if jb == B_Combo2 then GoSub Combo2 \ continue
//—-then move all motors based on joystick’s position
GoSub HeadR_Movements
GoSub HeadT_Movements
GoSub Arms_Movements
GoSub Brows_Movements
GoSub Eyes_Movements
GoSub Mouth_Movements
FIGURE 7. The complete puppet looks GoSub Torso_Movements
very lifelike when being manipulated wend
Return
with the joystick. //====================================================================
Yes_Combo:
universal joints on an automobile //—-Yes comination movement
m = “Yes”
driveshaft) while ensuring a secure xyText 0,100,m+spaces(20),””,20,fs_Bold
connection. The body is hinged to the ramping = HeadTRamping
channel = HeadTChannel
hips allowing a small side-to-side tilt. for i = 1 to 3
Figure 6 shows how the servo is nn = 750
mounted to control this movement. a = char(channel)+char(ramping)+char(nn&255)+char((nn >> 8)&255)
SerOut “!SC”,a,char(13)
The connecting rod passes through a delay 500
hole in the bottom of the body and nn = 950
a = char(channel)+char(ramping)+char(nn&255)+char((nn >> 8)&255)
connects to an eye-bolt in the hip SerOut “!SC”,a,char(13)
surface. Figure 6 also shows a Parallax delay 500
USB servo controller that will be dis- next
Return
cussed later. The arms aren’t functional //====================================================================
in a true robotic sense, but the pull of HeadR_Movements:
//—-rotate the head
a string creates just enough movement ramping = HeadRRamping
to add to the illusion of life. channel = HeadRChannel
Figure 7 shows the fully clothed if HeadRTime < Timer()
rHeadR =random(HeadRRandomness)-HeadRRandomness/2
and painted puppet. Fake fur from a HeadRTime = Timer()+1000 // random movement every 1000 mseconds
cloth store was used for hair. The USB endif
nn = HeadRLowLimit+round(jr*(HeadRHighLimit-HeadRLowLimit))+rHeadR
cable for the servo controller, as well a = char(channel)+char(ramping)+char(nn&255)+char((nn >> 8)&255)
as a power cable are run down the SerOut “!SC”,a,char(13)
puppet’s leg and extend from the bot- Return
//====================================================================
tom of the pants to make connections
38 SERVO 11.2008
Blankenship.qxd 10/8/2008 2:58 PM Page 39

FIGURE 8. An extended joystick provides

control of the puppet’s functions.
easy while being hidden from view.
The clothes for a small puppet are
not easy to find. An outfit for a 12-18
month old child was tailored and modi-
fied to give it the correct proportions.
The features on this puppet allow
for a variety of emotions. When the
puppet lowers his eyebrows, for
example, he looks mad. Raising the
eyebrows while keeping the mouth
open will express surprise.
In order to make control of the
puppet as intuitive as possible, all the
movements on the puppet were
associated to similar movements
on an extended joystick. Figure 8
summarizes these movements.
Some of the puppet’s actions are
provided automatically by the computer,
thus making the manipulation easier
for the user. Buttons on the extended
joystick, for example, can be pro-
grammed to provide specific movements
for the arms, or head movements for
yes and no. All of these motions could
be created by controlling the puppet
manually with the joystick, but
preprogrammed movements can have
pre-selected servo speeds and limits so
that the automated movements can
be as lifelike as possible. Furthermore,
JOYSTICK ACTION PUPPET MOVEMENT
• Twisting the stick • Rotates the puppet’s head
• Moving the stick forward/backward • Tilts head forward/backward
• Moving the stick left/right • Tilts the body left/right
• POV hat left/right • Moves the eyes left/right
• POV hat forward/backward • Moves the eyebrows up/down
• Trigger (firing) button • Opens the mouth
the arms, head, and body all have shows a representative sample of some
small random movements pro- of the subroutines. You can download
grammed into them even when the the full program from www.Robot
puppet is not being controlled. This BASIC.com. It is well commented so
simulates life-like restless shuffling. it should be easy to follow the logic.
At this point, we are ready to The techniques demonstrated in
create the program to bring the this article can be valuable in a wide
puppet to life. We used RobotBASIC variety of projects. Even this project
because it has the ability to read and itself can be the starting point for further
write to all the ports on a PC (parallel, ideas. For example, instead of using
serial, and USB). A Parallax USB multi- the humanoid form as a manually
servo motors controller www.Parallax. controlled puppet, you could place it
com) makes it easy to control the under automatic computer control. If
servos because it will simultaneously you combine voice synthesis and voice
move the servos using the positions recognition with the puppet’s ability to
and speeds requested by the simulate emotions, it is easy to imagine
controller program and maintain those an amusing interactive robotic display.
positions without further intervention. Of course, the techniques shown
The RobotBASIC program reads the here can be utilized in robotic projects
joystick and then commands the servo involving humanoid forms and other
motor controller module to position the animatronic characters. Constructing
motors accordingly, reflecting the posi- your own computer-controlled puppet
tioning of the joystick and/or button allows you to have the features you
presses. The program is too long to list want along with the ability to control
here in full, but the listing in Figure 9 it as you see fit. SV

Announcing
the Gears Heavy Metal Robot Kit
Designed for Students and Professionals Supports 200 lbs of
L Heavy Metal is engineered for rigors of daily use in classrooms, standing weight!
summer camps, workshops, labs . . . even combat robots!
L Assembles quickly using fasteners of same size/pitch and
threaded inserts. 10" wheel base, heavy gauge aluminum,
4-wheel drive, 3" rubber wheels, 3/8" axles, flanged
bronze bearings, #25 pitch steel chain and sprockets.
All drive components are keyed and broached.
L Competition all-metal gearhead motors, gearbox
rated at 500 oz-in of continuous torque. Heavy Metal
accepts off-the-shelf engineering parts, plus
components and control systems from GEARS IDS,
FIRST* and VEX Robotics* kits.
Heavy Metal 1 Kit includes chassis, motors, drive system, and wheels for $499.00.
Lb for Lb
Contact Mark Newby the World's
mnewby@gearseds.com Toughest Robot
sWWWGEARSEDSCOM Chassis
*VEX Robotics is a mark of Innovation First, Inc. and FIRST refers to © US FIRST (Foundation for the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology)

SERVO 11.2008 39
Eady-Universal Motor-edited.qxd 10/8/2008 9:29 PM Page 40

THE UNIVERSAL
MOTOR
by Fred Eady

Electric motors come in a seemingly

endless variety of shapes and sizes. If you’re
into robots and mechanical devices that
move about freely, DC (Direct Current)
motors capable of operating on battery
power are almost always your most
practical motor choice. However, not every
robot created by man or alien is a fully
mobile Robby running around on forbidden
planets. If your robot is a stationary
collection of nuts and volts that’s at home current to a brushed DC motor. Adding a trio of MOSFETs
working next to a wall outlet, you may in Schematic 1B forms an H-bridge configuration that allows
be able to use the advantages of an AC us to change both the speed and the direction of the
brushed DC motor with a few bits of PIC I/O.
(Alternating Current) power source to drive Can you conjure up a similar circuit in your mind’s eye
your mechanical animal’s motors. for a simple AC motor speed control? I see a PIC microcon-
troller punching an optoisolated DIAC (short for the words
t is often desirable to be able to control a motor’s speed DIode AC Switch) triggering a TRIAC, which is controlling
I and direction. I’ll bet that most of you have experience
with controlling the speed of a standard brushed DC motor.
the flow of AC voltage to an AC motor (Schematic 1C). The
problem with the DIAC/TRIAC motor circuit is that the DIAC
The first brushed DC motor speed control circuit that comes and a series resistor have all of the “control” and that
to my mind is shown in Schematic 1A and consists of a PIC control is very limited. Another problem with the AC motor
microcontroller squirting a PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) control circuit I’ve envisioned lies in the need to provide a
signal into the gate of a MOSFET whose job it is to switch separate DC power supply for the PIC microcontroller. What

VDD
VDD
Schematic 1A. The duty cycle of the PWM signal that
DRIVE A+ DRIVE B+
is applied to the gate of the MOSFET determines the
BRUSHED DC MOTOR
speed of the motor. In this case, the duty cycle
BRUSHED DC MOTOR percentage (0% to 100%) is directly proportional to
the speed of the motor shaft.

PWM IN

DRIVE B- DRIVE A- Schematic 1B. By selectively energizing diagonally

opposing MOSFETs, this H-bridge configuration
SCHEMATIC 1A allows for both speed and direction control of the
V+
SCHEMATIC 1B DC motor. The PWM signal is applied to one of the
diagonally opposing MOSFETs while the other
associated diagonally opposing MOSFET is held in
an energized state.
MT2

~
FROM MICRO
MT1 Schematic 1C. This is about as simple as it gets for
AC motor control. Fact is, we don’t have much
AC MOTOR
“control” here as the DIAC break over voltage
characteristics and the value of the resistor between
MT2 and the DIAC determine the TRIAC’s
SCHEMATIC 1C
triggering point.

40 SERVO 11.2008
Eady-Universal Motor-edited.qxd 10/8/2008 9:29 PM Page 41
we need is a microcontroller-based AC motor control circuit
that gives us effective control of the AC power that is
being applied to the motor without having to pamper the
microcontroller with additional power supply circuitry. We
have our challenge. Let’s deliver the solution.
The Universal Motor
A universal motor is a variation of a standard DC
motor. However, the universal motor can spin its rotor shaft
using AC or DC power. In that this motor spins so well with
AC power, you’ll find that most of them are powered with
AC rather than DC. If the universal motor application
requires slower speeds and quieter operation, you’ll most
likely see it powered with DC.
The stator of an everyday DC motor is composed of a
stationary group of permanent magnet poles. A common
DC motor rotor uses it rotor windings in conjunction with
a commutator and brushes to work with and against the
stator’s magnetic field to rotate the motor shaft. DC motor
brushes are made up of a carbon/graphite material and are
placed in direct physical contact with the commutator. The
motor brushes are also electrically connected directly to the
motor’s power source.
The brushes and commutator are considered part of
the DC motor’s stator assembly as the brushes and
commutator are permanently mounted in a stationary
position. The commutator is designed in such a manner
as to act as a switch that is fed by the brushes. The
commutator switches incoming current between the coils
within the DC motor. This switching of current between the
motor coils is called commutation.
A DC motor’s rotor windings are energized in such a
fashion as to force the rotor winding to attract to a stator
magnetic pole. In other words, the rotor winding is given
an opposite polarity than that of the stator pole that it is
moving towards. Opposite polarities attract and the rotor
moves to align itself with the attracting stator pole. When
the rotor winding aligns with the attracting stator pole, the
commutator is positioned in relation to the brushes to pro-
vide the stator pole with an attracting polarity to the next
rotor winding. The newly attractive rotor winding forces the
rotation of the rotor shaft as it is now being forced to move
and align with the stator pole that was previously the
attraction of the rotor winding before it. The commutator
contacts are angularly arranged in order to insure the
correct electrical and magnetic positioning of the
commutator contact versus the angular position of the
rotor winding and the stator magnetic pole. Since the DC
motor’s stator magnetic poles never change their polarity,
we can force the DC motor to run in the opposite direction
by simply reversing the polarity of the power being applied
to the commutator by the brushes.
To understand the forces that cause a DC motor to run
in a particular direction, point your right hand away from
your body while holding your thumb skyward. Your fingers
represent the polarity of the stator’s magnetic field with the
tips of your fingers representing the stator’s South magnetic
pole and your wrist standing in for the stator’s North
magnetic pole. The direction of your thumb is the direction
of the current flow through the stator’s magnetic field. The
palm of your hand is the direction of the resultant force.
Rotate your hand while observing the position of your palm
versus your thumb. It will be obvious to the most casual
observer that when your thumb is pointing towards the
floor (opposite current flow), the force will be opposite to
when your thumb was reaching for the sky. This simple
hand twisting technique illustrates what scientists call the
Lorentz force. Applying an AC voltage to a DC motor such
as the one we’ve just discussed will result in the rotor
simply thumping back and forth as the polarity of the
rotor winding current is constantly changing due to the
continual reversal of power polarity applied to the brushes
and commutator on every AC half cycle. To experience
this phenomenon, just hook up one of those 12 VDC
RadioShack DC hobby motors to a 6.3 VAC transformer’s
secondary windings. The DC hobby motor will whip its
shaft back and forth at a 60 Hz rate.
Conversely, a true AC motor will not run with the
application of a DC power source. That’s because the
rotation of a true AC motor’s output shaft depends on the
very thing that won’t allow our DC motor shaft to spin: the
continual rhythmic reversal of power source polarity.
Let’s take that DC motor we’ve been discussing and
modify it by replacing the permanent magnets in the stator
with electromagnets. We’ll rewire that same modified DC
motor to put all of its major components in series. That is,
the stator electromagnets are wired in series with the rotor
windings. Our modified DC motor will retain the original
brushes and commutator, which are also participants in the
series wiring scheme.
Now that we have replaced the stationary permanent
magnets with physically stationary electromagnets and
wired them in series with the rotor windings, our new DC
motor will no longer react to the changes in power source
polarity as we have come to expect. That’s because every
magnetic pole in our modified DC motor will change
polarity in step and negate any changes in the magnetic
force between the poles.
If we apply a DC power source to our modified DC
motor, the stator electromagnets will retain a fixed
magnetic polarity and function just as if they were
permanent magnets. The modified DC motor thinks it has
permanent stator magnets and everything will run just fine.
The Lorentz force right hand rule proves this out as the
North and South stator poles are fixed.
Changing the modified DC motor’s power supply polarity
will cause every magnetic pole to change its polarity. Thus,
reversing the current through the rotor windings also caus-
es a reversal of the polarity of the stator electromagnets.
This simultaneous rotor winding and stator electromagnet
polarity reversal means that the modified DC motor will
always turn in the same direction no matter the polarity of
the power source applied to the motor brushes. Expanding
on the observation that the modified DC motor will always
turn in the same direction despite the input power polarity,
SERVO 11.2008 41
42
SERVO 11.2008
R1 47

U1 5V

R2 47 2
Eady-Universal Motor-edited.qxd

RA0 R12
3 RA1
4 6 3 10K
RA2 6 3
5 RA3 RB6/PGC 27 5 5 2 2
R3 47 6 28 4 1
RA4/T0CKI RB7/PGD 4 1
7 RA5
10 C5
RA6 ICSP CONNECTOR R10 .1uF
9 RA7
R4 100
NEUTRAL (WHITE) 21 R8
RB0/INT0
10/8/2008

1 680
1M MCLR
J2 R11 1K OPTOTX
24 RB3
25 1 6 R9
N RB4 10K
LOAD 26 22
L RB5 RB1
RB2 23 5
11 RC0 TX_DATA OUT
12 4
9:30 PM

BTA16-600CW RC1/CCP2
13 RC2/CCP1 2 TX_DATA_GND
J1 MT2 TRIAC1 14 RC3 RC6/TX 17
RV1 15 18 5V 4N25
N RC4 RC7/RX
GATE 16
L C1 RC5
VDD 20
470nF MT1
C4 R6 OPTORX R7 180
.1uF 10K
Page 42

8 6 1 ALT_CONTROL
F1 GND
GND 19
10A 5

PIC18F2620 4
2 RX_DATA_IN
HOT (BLACK)
4N25
D1 + C3
5.6V 470uF@16V
R5 C2 D2

100 1.0uF 1N4007

NOTES:
1. RV1 - AVX VE07P00151K
2. R1 IS 100 OHMS @ 1 WATT MINIMUM
3. D1 IS 5.6V @ 1.5 WATTS - ON SEMI 1SMA5919BT3G
4. C1 IS 470nF @ 275VAC TYPE X2 MET POLYESTER
5. C2 IS 1.0uF @275VAC TYPE X2 MET POLYESTER
6. ALL RESISTORS SMT 0805 1% UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED
7. ALL CAPACITORS SMT 0805 16WVDC UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED
8. J1 AND J2 PHOENIX CONTACT 1729128

The amount of hardware stuff you load

simple ON/OFF switch.

uses the OPTORX optocouplers as a
code in the download package that
power supply. I’ve supplied a piece of
with the transformerless capacitive
on how much DC current you provide
onto the PIC side of this circuit depends
Schematic 2. This is an AC power

an AC motor shaft under our control.

microcontroller melded together to turn
supply, a DC power supply, and a PIC
Eady-Universal Motor-edited.qxd 10/8/2008 9:30 PM Page 43
this leads us to conclude that the modified DC motor will
run in one direction only with an AC power source, as well.
Imagine your right hand detached from your body and
floating in 3D space. Reverse the direction of your hand to
point towards you (reverse the polarity of the stator’s
magnetic field) while rotating your thumb towards the floor
(reverse the polarity of the rotor winding current). The force
(your palm) ends up in the same position as when your
hand was pointed away and your thumb pointed skyward.
Our modified AC/DC-capable motor is the a universal
motor. Most of your AC-powered kitchen appliance motors
and most vacuum cleaner motors are universal. I’ve led you
down this path because that’s the type of motor we are going
to drive with our PIC microcontroller-based controller. Our
target universal motor is a product of Ametek Lamb Electric.
The one shown in Photo 1 is an Ametek 116207-00, two-
stage tangential bypass discharge 120 VAC vacuum motor.
The 116207-00 is rated at 1,000 watts. Typical input current
draw for this motor is quoted as 8.6 amperes when pulling
a respectable vacuum through a 19 mm orifice. If you have
a robotic application that requires creating a vacuum, that’s
great. However, the universal motor controller circuitry
we’re about to design can be adapted to drive most any
motor you may wish to employ in your robotic applications.
The Universal Motor
Controller Hardware
I realize that many of you work with potentially
hazardous mechanical tools and devices on a daily basis.
Every metal head I’ve ever had the good fortune to meet
knows that safety is paramount when working with and
around metal-forming tools. For you electron heads, safety
should also be at the top of your list when working with
the universal motor controller electronics. The controller cir-
cuitry you see in Schematic 2 is driven by potentially lethal
120 VAC mains power. Do not under any circumstances
handle the universal motor controller electronics when the
120 VAC mains power is applied to it. If you don’t want to
release the magic smoke from your electronic tools, never
attach a PIC programmer or debugger device to a universal
motor controller when it is powered directly from the 120
VAC mains. If you want to probe the controller circuitry, get
the mains power, behind an
isolation transformer first. Like
anything else, the universal
motor controller circuitry is
best understood when
digested in small chunks. So,
as you study the components
in Photo 2, think of the
controller electronics as three
Photo 1. This universal motor
could be a blender motor or a
kitchen mixer motor. As long as
the motor is considered to be
universal, it’s a safe bet that our
core AC motor controller circuitry
can be adapted to drive it.
cooperative subsystems: an AC control subsystem; a DC
power subsystem; and a microcontroller subsystem. The AC
control subsystem is responsible for interfacing the motor
with the 120 VAC. The PIC18F2620 microcontroller depends
upon the DC power subsystem for its power supply needs.
The STMicroelectronics BTA16-600CW snubberless TRIAC —
which is the heart of the AC control subsystem — is under the
control of the PIC18F2620-based microcontroller subsystem.
The AC control subsystem provides overall protection
for the controller circuitry with a 10 ampere fuse and a zinc
oxide varistor placed in series with and across the 120 VAC
mains supply, respectively. A 470 nF X2-type capacitor (C1)
also traverses the 120 VAC supply to limit electromagnetic
interference (EMI). Believe it or not, C1 is not there for the
controller circuitry. It’s there to restrict harmonic pollution
of the 120 VAC mains. Take another look at Photo 2 and
you’ll see that the entire AC control subsystem is contained
to the left of the area delineated by the TRIAC’s heatsink.
In this instance, we are driving an inductive load and
one would normally see a resistor/capacitor snubber
network placed across the TRIAC’s MT1 and MT2 terminals
to reduce the possibility of false triggering of the TRIAC.
The BTA16-600CW is designed to work against the high
instantaneous voltages that occur during TRIAC
commutation that can force a TRIAC to conduct
unexpectedly. In the case of a TRIAC, commutation is the
switching from an ON state (TRIAC conducting) to an OFF
state (TRIAC not conducting). When an AC signal is applied
to a TRIAC and a trigger is applied to the TRIAC gate during
a time when the AC signal is not crossing zero, the TRIAC
will conduct until the next zero crossing of the AC signal. If
a trigger is not applied to the TRIAC gate following the zero
crossing event, the TRIAC will remain in a nonconductive
state until it is triggered again. The TRIAC’s ability to
reliably turn itself off (commutate) and be triggered into
conduction at will by our PIC within the time domain of an
AC cycle are the keys to controlling the amount of power
Photo 2. Although you can easily breadboard a universal
motor controller, building up your own on a printed circuit
board like this is recommended. Note that there are no
exposed printed circuit board traces or lands, which reduce
the probability of you getting your fingers fried. Be sure to
use X2-type capacitors for C1 and C2 as X2z are approved for
safe use in this type of AC circuit.
SERVO 11.2008 43
Eady-Universal Motor-edited.qxd 10/8/2008 9:31 PM
we apply to our universal motor.
The DC power component of the controller is supplied
by a transformerless capacitive power supply. With yet
another peek at Photo 2, all of the transformerless
capacitive power supply components are located below the
470 µF electrolytic capacitor (C3), which is to the right of
the TRIAC heatsink. You should be able to easily pick out
the transformerless capacitive power supply’s five
components, which include resistor R5 (100Ω) , capacitor
C2 (type X2 1 µF), zener diode D1 (5.6V, 1.5 watt), general-
purpose rectifier D2 (1N4007), and electrolytic capacitor
C3. The transformerless capacitive power supply you see in
Schematic 2 will work for us (keep a stable voltage
across C3) as long as the current we draw from the
transformerless capacitive power supply is equal to or less
than the current that is feeding the power supply.
The amount of output current the power supply
provides depends on the value of R5, C2, D1, and the
magnitude and frequency of the input AC voltage.
(C3) is the output charge collection point that stores
and supplies voltage gleaned from the rest of the
transformerless capacitive power supply components. Here’s
the formula that will reveal the amount of current taken
from the 120 VAC mains:

  


where:


  • IN = Current available at

  
 transformerless capacitive can be triggered by a positive or negative going pulse.
power supply output
• VRMS = AC mains input voltage
• VZ = Voltage drop across zener diode
• f = Frequency of AC mains input voltage
• C1 = Value of universal motor controller capacitor C2
(blocking capacitor)
• R1 = Value of universal motor controller resistor R5
(blocking resistor)
I had a great deal of fun playing with this formula. So,
to make it just as much fun for you to manipulate the
parameters, I whipped up an Excel page (included in the
download package available at www.servomagazine.
com) that calculates IN using your input values. Screenshot
1 is a spread of values using a tolerance of 20% for the
blocking capacitor and 1% for the blocking resistor. The
other parameters are hand-picked assumptions with the
exception of the VZ value (zener voltage drop), which I
extrapolated from the 1SMA5913BT3 datasheet.
I overdesigned my universal motor controller
Screenshot 1. I used a 1.0 µF X2-type capacitor and a
100 ? two-watt SMT power resistor in this transformerless
capacitive power supply to provide ample current for driving
LEDs and optocouplers. I also overdesigned the PIC18F2620
into this circuit as to not want for I/O if I needed it later. You
can design in just as much PIC as you want and just as much
DC current as you need for your personal universal motor
controller application.
44 SERVO 11.2008
Page 44
transformerless capacitive power supply as I didn’t end up
using as many current-hungry LEDs and optocouplers as I
had envisioned. As you can see from Screenshot 1, I have
about 30 mA of available current. The formula for
computing the available current is generous. The actual
amount of available current will be somewhere around
80% of the computed value, or 24 mA.
The PIC18F2620 is also overdesigned as I have plenty
of PIC I/O left over after servicing the controller’s AC and
logic interfaces. The main reasons for choosing the
PIC18F2620 for this application were its built-in oscillator,
ample I/O, and EUSART. A smaller PIC footprint will also
work with our controller AC and DC components. Just
make sure your PIC has enough I/O lines to do the job.
It’s pretty obvious in Photo 2 as to where the PIC,
optocouplers and all the supporting microcontroller
components are located.
It is important to note that our transformerless
capacitive power supply has its DC positive component
referenced to the 120 VAC mains Line, which is also
connected to the triac’s MT1 terminal. The reasons for the
zener diode’s cathode connection to the 120 VAC mains
Line are twofold. First, we want to trigger our BTA16-
600CW using a low-going pulse. The reason for selecting a
low-going trigger pulse is dictated by the quadrants in
which we desire to trigger the BTA16.
A careful study of Figure 1 shows us that a typical triac
Since we’re triggering the controller’s BTA16 with a low-
going pulse, we can only trigger it in quadrants II and III.
For inductive loads, triggering in quadrants II and III is
desirable as the triggering energy is not excessive here.
Simple diac-based lamp dimmer circuits — which are
fashioned similarly to Schematic 1C — usually trigger in
auadrants I and III. Transpose the diac trigger diagram in
Figure 2 over Figure 1 to see why. quadrant I is also a
desirable triggering quadrant as it does not require
excessive triggering current. Note that quadrants I and III
are complementary as far as triggering and AC cycle con-
duction are concerned. For most applications, quadrant IV
is to be avoided as it takes the most triggering energy. Note
also that both the positive and negative portions of the AC
cycle can be processed with a low-going triac trigger pulse.
The BTA16-600CW requires a minimum of 35 mA and
a maximum of 60 mA of gate current flow to trigger. The
PIC18F2620 can sink 25 mA per I/O pin. I’ve paralleled 3
I/O pins to provide a total of 75 mA of sink current
capability. The 47.5Ω 1% resistors (R1, R2, and R3) are
present to level the I/O pin load across the three current
sinks and limit the maximum amount of gate current drive.
In our universal motor controller application, I’ve selected
a minimum logical high level of three volts. The BTA16-
600CW datasheet tells me I need to be ready to sink a max-
imum of 60 mA of current through the triac gate. Using
Ohm’s Law, that equates to:
R = 3 volts / 0.060 Amperes
= 50Ω
Eady-Universal Motor-edited.qxd 10/8/2008 9:31 PM Page 45

Figure 1.To make the logical low triggering easier to understand,

forget about AC and think logically. Think of the REF terminal
as a DC voltage (five volts) instead of an AC voltage. Triggering
the TRIAC is accomplished by taking the DC voltage level at
the gate of the TRIAC below the DC voltage level
of the REF terminal.
I selected the gate-limiting resistor values that are a
click below 50Ω to insure that enough current (about 63
mA with the 47.5Ω resistors) could sink through the triac
gate and PIC I/O pins.
You may be asking why the triac doesn’t trigger when
the PIC I/O pin attached to the gate is logically high.
Take another look at Figure 1. Notice that everything is
referenced to the MT1 terminal. Schematic 2 shows us that
terminal is referenced to the positive pole (zener diode D1’s
cathode) of the transformerless capacitive power supply. So,
to trigger the BTA16 with a logically low gate potential
means that the gate voltage must go negative with respect
to terminal MT1. With MT1 referenced to the positive pole
of the five-volt power supply, we can take the PIC I/O pin
driving the gate below the voltage applied to the PIC’s VDD
pin (+5 VDC), but we can never take the PIC I/O pin that is
driving the triac gate above the positive voltage level that is on or off, depending upon the logical state of the OPTORX
being supplied to the PIC’s VDD pin by the capcitive power input (RC7). You can change the motor speed by altering
supply (which is the same voltage level referenced at the the triac triggering angle, which ranges from zero degrees
MT1 terminal). Thus, the voltage at the gate can never be (motor off) to 179 degrees. I found that my universal motor
more positive than the voltage referenced at the MT1 would not spin with a firing angle beyond 145 degrees.
terminal, and the triac cannot trigger. So, the theoretical useful triggering range is one to 140
To correctly position our trigger pulse within the 16.66 degrees. I will caution you to tie down your motor if you
ms period of a 60 Hz AC cycle, we need to know when the plan to trigger the device below 90 degrees with the
zero crossing point of the cycle occurs. Thanks to the PIC’s Ametek I used. At 90 degrees with no vacuum load, mine
internal I/O pin protection diodes, we can simply place a howled and roared. (My wife commented that the motor
limiting resistor between the 120 VAC mains neutral and a sounded like a small plane taking off of the shop bench).
PIC I/O pin. Our zero crossing event (ZVC) detection is Also, be aware that switching within a triac is not instanta-
enabled by the PIC18F2620 RB0 pin’s ability to trigger an neous. Switching delays will limit the lowest triggering
interrupt. Each time the AC cycle crosses zero, the PIC is angle you will be able to dial in. The real fun in all of this is
interrupted. The ZVC firmware has the ability to determine punching in those trigger angles and turning the universal
if the event occurred on a rising or falling half cycle and
Figure 2. A DIAC triggers on each AC half cycle. Note that the
uses this event as a timing reference for issuing a TRIAC polarity of the TRIAC’s MT2 terminal always matches the
trigger pulse. polarity of the TRIAC gate’s trigger pulse. Also note the total
Earlier, I warned against casually connecting stuff to lack of DIAC activity in Quadrants II and IV.
the controller electronics. However, it would be nice to be
able to pass control information to the universal motor
controller’s PIC. The easiest way to accomplish this is to
simply optoisolate the PIC I/O pins we wish to interface to
the outside world. Just in case any of us will have the need
to have the controller respond, I’ve also included an
optoisolated transmit portal. I placed the optoisolated
interface on the PIC’s EUSART transmit and receive pins.
Using the EUSART pins allows us to send and receive serial
data, as well as using the controller’s PIC I/O pins as simple
binary ON/OFF inputs and outputs.

The Universal Motor

Controller Firmware
The firmware behind the universal motor controller is
just as easy to understand as the hardware. I’ve supplied
code in the download package that simply turns the motor
SERVO 11.2008 45
Eady-Universal Motor-edited.qxd 10/8/2008 9:31 PM Page 46
Photo 3. I hung my
IDEAL 400 AC clamp
meter around the
universal motor’s
AC line lead (black
lead) with a 90
degree TRIAC
triggering angle
dialed in. The
universal motor’s
no-load AC
amperage draw
varied from 6.92
to 7.00 amperes.
motor loose. Photo 3 is a real time shot of my motor’s
no-load AC current draw with a triggering angle of
90 degrees.
If you’re having problems getting your arms around
the triac triggering angle concept, visualize them as
beginning with the rising half cycle of an AC signal. Half
way through the first positive half cycle is 90 degrees,
which is also the peak positive-going voltage of the AC
cycle. As you move past 90 degrees, you will move towards
the next zero crossing point at 180 degrees. The firmware
will reset the triggering angle to relative zero at each zero
crossing event and trigger the device at the same relative
time in the negative cycle as it did in the positive cycle of
the AC signal.
For instance, let’s assume we trigger the triac at 90
degrees into the positive half cycle. It will conduct until the
AC signal crosses zero at 180 degrees into the cycle. The
next trigger pulse will be issued 90 degrees after zero
crossing, which is actually 270 degrees into the AC cycle.
At the next zero crossing, the firmware will reset the trigger
timing reference to zero and the triac will again
commutate. The result is that we have energized the
universal motor for 50% of the full AC cycle with a 90
degree trigger angle. Since the motor will run very slowly at
a 140 degree trigger angle and run faster as the trigger
angle is decreased, we can conclude that the angle is
inversely proportional to the motor speed. Here’s the code
Photo 4. It ain’t as pretty, but it works just as well as
the production universal motor controller you see in
Photo 2. The smaller 470 nF X2 filter capacitor is directly
above the varistor and fuse. The much larger 1.0 µF X2
transformerless capacitive power supply blocking
capacitor is just left of the PIC18F2620.
SOURCES
Microchip — www.microchip.com
PIC18F2620
www.ametek.com
Ametek Lamb Electric 116207-00
Universal Motor
www.htsoft.com
HI-TECH PICC-18 C Compiler
STMicroelectronics — www.st.com
BTA16-600CW
46 SERVO 11.2008
that converts the triac trigger angle to a trigger delay time:
//**********************************************
//* CONVERT TRIGGER ANGLE TO TIME
//**********************************************
unsigned int angle_to_time(char trigger_angle)
{
unsigned int angle2time_val;
if(trigger_angle == 0)
{
angle2time_val = 0;
}
else
{
angle2time_val =
0xFFFF - (trigger_angle * 0x2E);
//each degree ~ 46us at 60 Hz
}
return angle2time_val;
}
Understanding how the triac trigger timing is deter-
mined is the key to understanding the rest of the universal
motor controller firmware. Each degree of trigger angle
delay time is equivalent to approximately 46 µs assuming a
60 Hz AC signal. If you’re reading this in a 50 Hz mains
country, each degree of delay time is approximately 56 µs.
Thus, the controller hardware and firmware will work with
50 Hz AC systems. All you have to change is the time delay
associated with each degree of triggering angle.
A PIC18F2620 timer uses the angle2time_val to kick off
a 400 µs TRIAC trigger pulse at the same relative time in
every AC half cycle. At every zero crossing event, the cur-
rent trigger angle is converted to a value that is fed into the
PIC18F2620’s triggering delay timer. To prevent the motor
from lurching at every speed change, the firmware includes
a routine that ramps up or down to the new trigger angle.
The firmware also contains a soft-start routine that smoothly
ramps the motor up to speed upon initial power-up.
Hands On ... Carefully, Please ...
The best way to get your hands around driving the
universal motor is to do it yourself. Photo 4 is a shot of the
breadboard version of the controller I assembled before
committing to a printed circuit board (PCB). However, you
don’t have to build this from scratch as the controller down-
load package contains an ExpressPCB file that you can use
as-is to fabricate your own PCB. The firmware
included in the download package was created
using the HI-TECH PICC-18 C compiler and is
ready to run out of the box. I’ve included a set of
interrupt-driven RS-232 routines in the code for
those of you that want to experiment with
controlling the controller serially. All that’s left for
you to do is to collect the necessary electronic
components, solder them down, and fire up your
universal motor. All it takes is an email to solicit
my help with this project. I had bunches of fun
with this and I’m sure you will too. SV
Fred Eady can be reached via email at fred@edtp.com.
Full Page.qxd 10/7/2008 11:47 AM Page 47
McCullogh.qxd 10/7/2008 10:31 AM Page 48

by KEVIN MCCULLOGH

GETTING CONTROL
WITH THE
Propeller
Introduction
PART 3:
Stepper Motors

unipolar or bipolar. From a controller’s point of view,

In the last article of this series, David Carrier covered
how hobby servos work and an appropriate control scheme
using the Propeller™ microcontroller. By taking advantage
of the Propeller’s multiple onboard processors, the control
board was designed to be easy to use with a minimum
number of components. In this part of the series, we will
take a “step” (bad pun intended) into the world of stepper
motors. We will look at bipolar steppers in particular and
some methods to improve their performance.
Stepper Motor General
Description/Comparison
In general, stepper motors are brushless motors with
many poles per rotation. In a standard DC motor, an
applied voltage causes the motor to spin continuously
because the windings are automatically commutated
(switched) internally as the rotor travels through a full
rotation. In a stepper motor, windings are commutated
externally, usually with either discrete transistor switches or
H-bridges. The main advantage they have over DC motors is
their ability to be controlled to precise angles without using
closed loop feedback. This is at the expense of increased
motor weight, and lower efficiency and speed. However,
open loop control systems are generally much simpler and
cheaper than closed loop servo systems.
the main difference is that unipolar motors only require
current flow in one direction, while bipolar motors require
the current to reverse direction. This makes unipolar motors
easier to control electrically since current can simply be
switched on or off in each winding. Bipolar motors
generally require more complex circuitry, such as H-bridges
to reverse current through the windings. This can increase
the cost of the controller.
On the positive side, the power-to-weight ratio of
bipolar motors surpasses unipolar motors since the entire
winding is utilized at any given time on each pole. In
unipolar motors, only half the coil is driven at a time. This
reduces the size and usually cost of bipolar motors over
unipolar motors with comparable specifications.
For this article, we will implement a control scheme for
a bipolar stepper motor using the Propeller microcontroller
and some external circuitry. And, since there is always
something satisfying about improving hardware
performance, we will also go over some ways to
optimize the stepper motor drive system.
S S S
N N N
NN NN NN
S S S

Types of Stepper Motors

Figure 1: Unipolar Figure 2: Unipolar Figure 3: Bipolar
Stepper motors come in a variety of configurations, as stepper with stepper with stepper motor
continuous separate windings
shown in Figures 1-3, but are generally categorized as windings
48 SERVO 11.2008
McCullogh.qxd 10/7/2008 10:38 AM Page 49
Control Method
The current through each winding of a bipolar stepper
motor must be alternated, so when operating from a single
supply, the best approach is to use an H-bridge. These can
be created using discrete transistors, or more conveniently
by using an existing H-bridge integrated circuit (IC). The
latter is often the best choice for driving motors requiring
less than a few amps. I found a couple bipolar motors
laying around which are rated at 12V, 75Ω per coil; or
160 mA per coil. The L293D IC is a quad half H-bridge
driver and can handle up to 600 mA per driver – more
than enough for this project!
We will be pairing the four half H-bridges to form two
full bridges to control the two windings in our bipolar
stepper motor. Each bridge now has two control inputs
and one enable line. When the control inputs’ levels are
opposite, current will be driven through the motor coil in
one direction or another, according to Table 1. Driving both
lines high or both lines low effectively shorts the motor
windings across the supply or ground, respectively, which
acts to electrically brake the motor. The enable line is
unnecessary for this configuration and can be left tied to
VCC through a resistor.
The input lines from both H-bridges should be connected
to I/O pins on the Propeller microcontroller. All that is left is
to program the necessary step sequence to cause the motor
to rotate. This can be done by storing the output pin states
in memory, and stepping through each state after a brief
delay. Increasing or decreasing the delay period changes
the speed of the motor. Figure 4 shows the coil switching
sequence for two full cycles with four steps per cycle. As
you can see, a simple stepper motor driver can be made
rather easily; however, there are a few techniques to get
noticeably higher performance from the motor. These
come in the form of programming, hardware, or a
combination of both.
Example Spin code for this project can be downloaded
at www.parallax.com/go/GettingControl3. The Spin
object takes care of sequentially stepping the motor
windings behind the scenes. With a simple set of function
calls on the front end, this object can be used to move to
an absolute position, move a relative number of positions
from the current position, set the step rate (speed) in full or
half steps, and set the acceleration value to ramp up and
down the speed. The user can also read back the current
position or clear the position back to 0.
The object is set to handle up to four stepper motors
at once, using a total of 16 I/O pins. And since this code is
open source, you can easily tailor the object to fit your
exact needs whether they are to drive unipolar steppers or
to employ some of the optimizations described next.
Optimizations
Microstepping
Microstepping breaks each step into a number of
smaller sub-steps in order to achieve higher position
resolution. This is usually achieved in software by using
pulse width modulation (PWM) to vary the current in each
+Vcc
Coil
A
-Vcc
+Vcc
Coil
B
-Vcc
Figure 4: Coil switching sequence for bipolar motor.
coil. By controlling the current more precisely, the motor
can be moved to many positions between each full step.
Microstepping also allows the motor to transition more
smoothly, resulting in reduced vibration and noise. The
practical limit to the resolution of microsteps is affected by
static friction, detent torque of the motor caused by the
presence of permanent magnets, and any error introduced
by the controller. Very thorough analyses of microstepping
can be found in various sources online or in related text
books.
Current Regulation
When a coil is switched on, it takes a small amount of
time for the current to reach its steady state. Each coil of
wire has a certain amount of inductance, L, and series
resistance, R. The voltage across the coil, V, and the coil’s
inductance determine how fast the current changes. This
rate of change — known as di/dt — is equal to the voltage
divided by the inductance: di/dt = V/L. At low switching
speeds, the current rise time is negligible compared to the
duration of the pulse. However, at high switching speeds,
the coil current is unable to reach its full value before
being switched again. Motor torque is proportional to the
current through the coil, so as the speed increases, torque
decreases – eventually to a point where the motor can no
longer operate.
If a much larger voltage — around 2-3 times the rated
voltage — is used when the coil is initially switched on, the
current will rise more quickly (see Figure 5). This gives the
motor more torque allowing it to operate up to higher
speeds. However, it is important that current through the
coil does not significantly exceed the rated value, since
overheating and ultimately damage to the motor can occur.
One way to protect against this is analog current
Input 1 Input 2 En Output Function
L L H Electrically braked
L H H Reverse current flow
H L H Forward current flow
H H H Electrically braked
X X L Electrically braked
Table 1: H-bridge output function versus input state.
SERVO 11.2008 49
McCullogh.qxd 10/7/2008 10:39 AM Page 50

components to sense and switch the supply current, but it

is one of the best ways to noticeably increase motor torque
and top cutoff speed. And conveniently, we already have a
microcontroller available to monitor the current and control
the switching.

Conclusion
Current (i)

Rated coil current

There are several methods of fine-tuning the control

Ideal
Simple driver
Current regulated driver
Simple driver with double voltage
Time (t)
Figure 5: Current transient curves showing the benefits of a
regulated current driver
limiting with a transistor. Initially, the transistor allows full
supply voltage across the coil. Then, as current through
the coil increases, the transistor partially turns off to limit
current to the rated value.
The down side to this analog approach is that
significant energy is wasted as heat in the transistor. A
more efficient method is to switch the large supply voltage
all the way on or all the way off. The on time is adjusted
so that the average coil current is appropriately limited to
the rated value. This technique requires a few additional
system to enhance a stepper motor’s performance.
Fortunately, by using a microcontroller like the Propeller
and a few external components, we have tremendous
flexibility to create a control system as simple or complex as
necessary for our application.
Next month, Chris Savage will be back with the final
article in this series to discuss the use of PWM for DC
motor control. Be sure to check out the Parallax web link
for schematics, Spin code, and photos of this project. And
as always, good luck and have fun! SV
Parallax website for this article with example code,
schematics, and photos.
www.parallax.com/go/GettingControl3
This website provides lots of information and a very
thorough explanation of stepper motors.
www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/step/index.html
Wikipedia article on stepper motors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepper_motor

Microsoft

Visual Studio
Dyynamixxel SDK C/C++
Visual Basic
C#

EX-106
NEW

164
Encoder

EX-106 14.8
84 106
0.182 0.143
155

50 SERVO 11.2008
Full Page.qxd 10/7/2008 11:49 AM Page 51

What today’s robotics

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For the latest trends in toys
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scientificsonline.com.

Gift of Science
1-800-728-6999 • www.scientificsonline.com
Alter3-edited.qxd 10/6/2008 4:48 PM Page 52

Software and Part 3: Software Advantages network admin for seven years
Programming so I stuck with what was
of a PC-Based Robot comfortable. Installation of the
First off, let’s set the record operating system (OS) went
n this series of articles, we are exploring my Pico
straight. I am not a programmer.
I know various forms of
“microcontroller Basic,” VBScript,
some Visual Basic, and am in the
I ITX based Johnny 5 project. In the first article, I
detailed the work that went into upgrading and
expanding the original kit to make it a more viable
simply enough. I plugged an
LCD monitor, keyboard, mouse,
and USB CD-ROM into my robot
(Ha! I love saying that!) and
process of teaching myself C#, research platform. In the second article, I dove into installed Windows just as I
but I don’t believe that qualifies the concept and implementation of PC-based would on any PC. I kept it
me as a programmer. Until my plugged into these peripherals
robotics. In this third article, I will show some of
recent venture into C#, I had only throughout the Windows install,
taught myself enough to get the software advantages of having an onboard PC. driver installation, software
specific projects done, and left it While I used the Lynxmotion Johnny 5 kit as a installation, and initial
at that. With my Johnny 5 platform for my project, the principles, concepts, configuration of the OS.
project, I wanted to keep things and even components of this project can be Before we dive into what
simple and more importantly take applied to almost any robotics platform. software I installed on Johnny,
advantage of GUI-based let’s cover some initial
programs as much as possible, given that I have full access to configuration details needed to trim down the OS a bit and
the robot’s desktop at all times. We’ll touch more on that prepare it for remote connectivity. Trimming down the OS is
later. Let’s tally a few things that we have at our disposal optional and doesn’t provide a huge benefit but it’s sort of
with a PC-based robot: We have a computer and hard drive habitual for me to do on a PC with a very specific function
capable of running a full fledged operating system, wireless such as the robot’s Pico ITX. Right clicking on My
networking, “bridgeware” to connect the PC to the robot’s Computer, selecting Manage, and then selecting Services
hardware components (in my case, this was my SSC-32 down towards the bottom will bring up a list of active and
servo controller), and various other peripherals such as USB inactive services on Windows XP. These are various
webcams, speakers, and a microphone. I will show you just processes running in the background that enable and
how easy it is to bring all of those components together to control different functions of the OS, and a lot of them
greatly expand your robot’s potential. aren’t needed for this project. I turned off Automatic
Updates, Clipbook, Error Reporting Service, Fast User
Operating System Switching, Help and Support, Indexing Service, Print
Spooler, Remote Registry, Security Center, Themes, and
I used Windows XP for my project; it’s what I know Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) by
best and it’s simple and easy to use. I know many out right clicking each service, selecting Properties, changing
there will preach the greater potential of Linux in such the Startup Type to Disabled, and clicking Stop.
applications, but for me it was a simple choice: I was a Lastly, I did a clean-up of a few unneeded apps that
52 SERVO 11.2008
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get installed with Windows such as Games,

Internet Explorer (I use Firefox), MSN Explorer,
Outlook Express, Windows Media Player, and
Windows Messenger. These are just the basics.
Depending upon your comfort level with
Windows, you can take the total size down to
about 500-600 megabytes and use as little as
50 megabytes of RAM while still maintaining
an OS capable of running your robot.
Diving into the intricacies of in-depth Windows
liposuction is a bit beyond the scope of this
article, however.
Remote connectivity is very important in
PC-based robots. You don’t want to have to
continue to plug in peripherals to your bot
when you can simply pull up its desktop over FIGURE 1
your network via Remote Desktop Protocol
(RDP) and operate it with the same ease. To
prepare Windows for this, you must first create
a password protected account or simply use
the default Administrator account for this
purpose. Next, enable Remote Desktop connections on the treads on the robot. Lucky for me, the original Johnny 5
computer. This option is found by right clicking on My kit I started out with came with a Lynxmotion SSC-32
Computer, selecting Properties, selecting the Remote tab, Sequencer, which is a GUI-based servo control and
and placing a checkbox in “Allow users to connect remotely sequencing package. SEQ is a straightforward and easy-to-
to this computer.” At this point, all that is left is establishing use application that interfaces directly with the SSC-32
a connection to your wireless network. servo controller I am using for this project.
The Remote Desktop Connection manager can be Servo home positions and range limits are set via a
found by navigating to Start > All Programs > Accessories > small configuration menu, and servos are controlled via a
Communications > Remote Desktop Connection, or drag-and-drop GUI. Each servo is represented as a small box
alternatively you can type “mstsc” on the Run line. You can with a slider for setting servo positions, which can be
do this on any modern Windows-based PC connected to moved around to create a layout of your robot’s frame.
your network and simply type in the computer name you Figure 1 shows a screenshot of what my servo layout looks
set for your robot’s computer. This will bring up a log-on like. A “step” is created by manipulating the servos to their
prompt; enter in the username/password you set earlier desired position and then taking a snapshot of the position.
and your robot’s desktop will be displayed. At this point, These steps can be strung together and played through at
you can access and control your robot’s PC from anywhere various speeds to create complex motion sequences, as well
within the range of your wireless network. If it has as be mapped to buttons in the GUI or physical keys. Refer
webcams, you can view those over this connection for to Figure 2 for a picture of a pose created using SEQ. Also
easy telepresence, talk through it using a text-to-speech check out www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHUoxtG91YQ
engine, access network resources, and control its servos
and motors via various programs.

Telepresence
The software used on a robotics project is going to
be dependent upon many things such as what type of
hardware you’re using, what programming languages
you’re comfortable with, and what you want to do with
your robot. Obviously, I can’t tell you what will work for
your project, but I will cover what worked well for me.
My first objective with this project was to set up a
solid telepresence scheme and have the ability to speak
through the robot (read: scare the wits out of my wife). FIGURE 2
Given that a remote video feed is simply a matter of
establishing an RDP connection and viewing one of the
webcams, all I really needed was a way to control the
SERVO 11.2008 53
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for an example of a dance

sequence I made (when I was
very, very bored).
SEQ allows for control of my
robot’s Sabertooth 2x5 motor
controller, as it responds to PWM
signals just as a servo does. I
created various steps for moving
the robot forward, back, left, and
right at varying speeds – and
then mapped those to my arrow
keys. I was also able to control
the pan/tilt movement of the
head to look around the room.
Once this was accomplished, I
could easily drive the robot
FIGURE 3
around my house through an
RDP connection with a streaming
This code is written for a camera set to 160x120 resolution, a pan/tilt ‘ video feed from its webcams — overall, a very easy
servo turret, and a Lynxmotion SSC-32 servo controller. implementation of telepresence.
‘ Initialize starting servo values Adding a voice to the robot was also a simple task,
‘ Make sure these variables are set to their respective channels in thanks to its onboard PC. The default text-to-speech engine
the
‘ SSC-32 module that comes with Windows is fairly primitive, to the point of
pan = GetVariable(“PAN_SERVO”) being nearly unintelligible. The company Cepstral offers high
tilt = GetVariable(“TILT_SERVO”)
quality text-to-speech engines that work as drop-in upgrades
‘ get the size (width or height) of the current bounding box for the stock Microsoft engine. I chose a voice called “David”
size = GetVariable(“COG_BOX_SIZE”) as it was clear and easy to understand. The Cepstral voice
‘ if it is equal to “” then no object was detected engines also come with a simple text-to-speech app that
if size <> 0 then reads aloud whatever is typed into the text box. In the first
‘ get the horizontal center of gravity article, an LED VU meter was fashioned into a mouth, giving
cogX = GetVariable(“COG_X”) the robot’s voice a visual display as spoken syllables are
‘ pan left synchronized with the LEDs. This setup mimics the original
if cogX < 70 then technology used for the Hollywood Johnny 5’s mouth.
pan = pan - 20
end if
Autonomy and Machine Vision
‘ pan right
if cogX > 90 then FIGURE 4
pan = pan + 20 As I stated before, I am not a programmer. Full blown
end if
autonomy is a technology still being explored by top
‘ get the vertical center of gravity researchers around the world; however, a small piece of
cogY = GetVariable(“COG_Y”)
that pie would satisfy me. Having built small walkers and
‘ tilt down rovers in the past that used basic range sensors to avoid
if cogY < 50 then obstacles, I wanted to explore new territory with this
tilt = tilt - 10
end if project. Given that my robot was already capable of vision,
‘ tilt up
I chose to explore machine vision for the first time.
if cogY > 70 then Roborealm is a free machine vision software package
tilt = tilt + 10 that can be interfaced to a wide variety of cameras and
end if
electronic hardware. It handles a lot of the heavy coding
if pan > 2500 then pan = 1500 work required for vision processing and allows novice
if pan < 500 then pan = 1500
if tilt > 2500 then tilt = 1500 programmers to focus on the concept and implementation.
if tilt < 500 then tilt = 1500 In Roborealm, a camera’s video feed is brought into
an interface in which various filters can be applied to a
SetVariable “PAN_SERVO”, pan processing pipeline. These image filters can accomplish a
SetVariable “TILT_SERVO”, tilt
variety of different tasks, such as filtering out specific colors,
end if sharpening or softening an image, reducing image noise,
and drawing outlines around objects, to name just a few.
Contact Andrew at andrewdalter@gmail.com Refer to Figure 3 for a diagram of the Roborealm GUI and a
preview of what an object looks like using a filter to remove
54 SERVO 11.2008
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all but red and green colors.

Like many others, I have
a man-child obsession with
building a robot that is capable
of fetching me a cold adult bev-
erage. I soon learned this was
much easier said than done, but
I had to start somewhere. The
basis of locating specific physical
items within an environment is
known as “object tracking,” and
can be done a few different
ways. The easiest way for me
was to implement colored object
tracking. The concept behind
this is fairly simple: RGB color
filters are applied in Roborealm
to remove all but a specific FIGURE 5
color. I had a red ball handy that
proved itself to be an excellent
prop for this. To remove some
background noise, I applied a mean color filter which essen- the possibilities of PC-based robotics. As my own
tially blurs the image. Roborealm also has a very handy center programming knowledge grows, I think my robot’s
of gravity (COG) filter which places a box around the largest potential will grow exponentially, as the ceiling of possibility
concentration of same color pixels on the screen, and outputs is nearly limitless with this much computing horsepower at
an X,Y coordinate of its location. The SSC-32 servo controller my disposal. While it’s hard to sum up a year long project
has an interface module that can be added to the pipeline, in only three short articles, I hope that some of what I
allowing variables to be assigned to different channels. learned in the process can be passed along to others. I
Lastly, there is a VBscript module that provides a simple think the biggest thing I’ll take away from this project
programming interface to tie all of the variables together. is that we can’t always hold on to what is comfortable.
I created a program that tracks various colored objects Microcontrollers are still great tools but they are severely
using the pan and tilt head of my robot. Figure 4 shows the limited in what they can do when compared to a PC-class
VB code I used; the entire .robo file containing all pipeline processor. Start thinking of them as complementary
settings is available for download from the SERVO website electronics to a larger, more powerful system and you’ll
(www.servomagazine.com). This program works by be surprised what solutions become available to you as
filtering out everything but a specified color, placing a COG an experimenter.
box around the mass of same colored pixels (the object), Welcome to the realm of PC-based robotics! It’s here
and the VB code reads the X,Y coordinates of the COG now and is the future of our hobby. For updates on the
module and translates those into servo positions on the pan progress I make with this project, visit my project page at
and tilt to keep the object in the center field of vision. I the Trossen Robotics Community. SV
have a video hosted on YouTube showcasing this object
tracking ability at Robogames 2008, found here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfMCaaePFBw. Figure 5 References
shows what my RDP session looks like when piloting my VIA Pico-ITX Page
robot around the house via telepresence. www.via.com.tw/en/initiatives/spearhead/pico-itx/
The next step for me will be experimenting with object
chasing. I can easily track the size of an object using Roborealm www.roborealm.com
Roborealm, and have been somewhat successful in being
Cepstral www.cepstral.com
able to drive towards the objects, but I still hit a lot of
walls. I’ve seen some work done where Roborealm can Lynxmotion SEQ www.lynxmotion.com
draw lines at the floor to ceiling junctions and use those to
avoid running into walls, so implementing that will be the My Project Thread
logical next step. http://forums.trossenrobotics.com
/showthread.php?t=1312
Conclusion My Blog
http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/blog.php?u=1492
I feel that my project barely scratches the surface of
SERVO 11.2008 55
Malone - Lego meets Sumo-edited.qxd 10/8/2008 7:06 PM Page 56

When LEGO meets Sumo

Running a SuGO tournament
by PHIL MALONE

When I moved to Garrett

County (a rural community
in western Maryland),
I really wanted to start
a robotics club. I’d been
working in underwater
robotics for about 20
years, and I figured it was
time for me to give
something back to the
community in the way of
fun technical challenges
for the area kids.
Underwater robots are tough to build (water and electricity just don’t mix), so I decided that
Sumo robots were the perfect place to start.

The Inspiration LEGO/Sumo ’bot was hatched.

After experimenting with several Sumo kits and even
designing some of my own bots, I realized that traditional
Sumo competitions require some technical expertise that I
couldn’t expect from the kids I wanted to attract (yet). I put
the idea on the back burner for a year while I mentored a
couple of area FIRST LEGO League (FLL) teams, and helped
out in some LEGO tech camps.
LEGOs Rule!
When my desire to start a local competition resurfaced,
I realized that I wasn’t utilizing an abundant resource in my
area, namely LEGOs. It turned out that two area teachers
“Chuck” and “Arlene” had been accumulating all kinds of
the coolest LEGO parts and RCX Bricks for years and they
loved seeing kids explore LEGO machines. So, the idea for a
Anyone who’s tried to build a LEGO/Sumo bot
probably knows that it’s tough getting one to fit into the
existing Sumo size classes. The RCX Brick (the original LEGO
brain) is just shy of the mini-Sumo class size limits, so by the
time you add motors, wheels, and a line sensor, you end up
with a very top-heavy robot.
Plus, until recently there was no easy way to add vision
to the RCX, so the robots just run around hoping to get
lucky and run into their opponent. For a Sumo bot to really
be competitive, it needs to be able to detect its opponent,
but LEGO doesn’t have a simple sensor that can be used to
decide which way to turn.
Since I’d used Sharp’s GP2D12 IR range sensor on my
other Sumo bots, I wondered if it could be adapted to the
LEGO RCX. The best way to find out was to see if anyone
had already tried, so I started Googling. First, I found
Andreas Peter, who had developed a fancy Sharp interface

56 SERVO 11.2008
Malone - Lego meets Sumo-edited.qxd 10/8/2008 7:06 PM Page 57

using an external microprocessor, then I came across

Philippe Hurbain, who had devised a simpler analog
interface. That led me to Nitin Patil (founder of
www.Mindsensors.com) who was selling a GP2D12-based
sensor that plugged into an RCX using a standard LEGO
cable. Woo Hoo!
The good thing about the Mindsensors device is that it
provides an actual range reading; but it also has its
downsides. First, in order for it to get enough power to
update at a reasonable rate, it has to be plugged into an
RCX motor output. This means that for a left and right eye,
you have four cables: two going into sensor inputs, and
two sharing a common motor output. The next problem is
that the sensor is very sensitive to battery voltage. After a
short while, even fresh batteries start giving erroneous
readings, which tends to make the Sumo bot spin. Cost
is a bit of a problem, because the sensor costs $33.
(That’s $66 per Sumo.)
I was about to give this up as a lost cause, when I
discovered a simpler unit that did everything I needed.
Mindsensors also sells what they call a Long Range Dual
Infra Red Obstacle Detector (DROD40). This device uses two
IR LEDs and a central IR detector to sense the presence of
an object in three zones: left, center, or right. The device
indicates the position via a single RCX input channel as a
stepped voltage. The DROD40 sells for $29 and is all that a
self-respecting Sumo robot needs.
Conceiving the Event Format
The DROD40 has a very clever circuit board with holes
that match the standard RCX electrical plug. Initially, we used
standard cables to connect the sensor to the RCX. However,
because of the rough and tumble that Sumo bots must
endure, these connections didn’t always stay connected.
Eventually, we cannibalized some old cables by cutting them
in half and soldering the wire ends directly to the sensor
boards (see Figure A). This provided a much more reliable
connection and also enabled us to permanently glue small
LEGO plates to the sensors to give them a more robust
mount.
Figure A. The MindSensors DROD40 sensor can be seen here
in its final modified configuration. Hot melt glue adds some
strain relief to the after-market sensor cable. Mindsensors
also has a DROD40 that is compatible with the new NXT
LEGO robots.
Portland Area Robotics Society Sumo rules to insert a new
class between the Japan and mini-Sumo classes.

By now, I’d decided how I wanted to run my

competition. Since LEGO is such an instant gratification toy,
I decided to throw out the classic design/build/test model,
and embrace everyone’s “let’s just build it” roots. I would
run a half-day event where people would turn up empty
handed, sit down in a room full of LEGOs, build the coolest
Sumo they could , and then battle it out on the Sumo ring.
I even had a name for my event ... it would be called
“SuGO” — a concatenation of Sumo and LEGO. With the
right inflection, the name even makes a convincing
Japanese battle cry.
To try out the basic SuGO concept, I created a Sumo
program using Robolab, beamed the program to some
RCXs, and got a group of my FLL kids together to build and
battle SuGO bots. Some of the resulting matches were
really exciting, but others were very dull (lots of deadly
embraces). It became clear that I had to be more creative
to keep this fun.
I needed to set some size and weight limits appropriate
for a SuGO bot that would permit interesting designs but
still create some technical challenges. I needed to
encourage more clever drive systems rather than just letting
the kids depend on lots of motors. Having the RCXs pre-
programmed turned out to be a great way to get all ages
involved (kids, moms, and dads), but I realized that I had to Figure 1. The best way to avoid having to answer the same
make the program more dynamic and adaptable to a wide questions over and over again is to create simple hand-outs. This
laminated card illustrates the correct way to hook up the motors
range of drive systems (e.g.: really fast or really slow). and sensors. The “Mechanic” program loaded on the RCX is used
So, to develop a successful SuGO class, I adapted the to verify that the robot is wired correctly.

SERVO 11.2008 57
Malone - Lego meets Sumo-edited.qxd 10/8/2008 7:06 PM
Sumo purists will notice that instead of sticking with
traditional “metric” units, I’ve reverted to “English” units
when defining the SuGO class. As an Australian who grew
up with the metric system, it’s not that I don’t like meters
and grams, it’s just that most American kids don’t know
what they mean. It’s ironic that even the English don’t use
”English” units anymore. Too bad the colonists didn’t throw
them overboard with the tea.
Here are the resulting SuGO Class specifications:
• The Dohyo diameter is 36”.
•The robot must be made exclusively out of LEGO
parts.
•The only exceptions to this are batteries and IR eyes.
•The robot may only use the following electrical parts:
— 1 RCX Brick with batteries.
— Up to three LEGO motors.
— Up to two light sensors.
— One set of DROD40 eyes.
— One touch sensor.
— Interconnecting cables as required by the motors
and sensors.
•The maximum robot size is 6” x 6” x unlimited
(WxLxH)
• The maximum robot weight is 1 lb, 8 oz.
Finally, Some Software
Once I’d decided on the class specifics, I had to work
on some programs. Embedded programming is my “thing,”
so I was looking forward to this.
During the experimental SuGO matches, it was quite
common for the robots to get locked together and either
bog down or circle the table in a very non-dancing-with-the-
stars kind of way. To keep things interesting, I needed to
Figure 2.The GEARS color scheme is “Sponge Bob Yellow,” so your
energy level peaks just by entering the room. The electrical parts
are seen in the foreground and are controlled by the event
coordinator. Teams are given a basic kit of electrical parts when
they register; this includes the pre-programmed RCX, two motors
with leads, a line sensor, and a set of IR eyes. The bulk of the
remaining LEGOS are laid out on a 4x8 table in the center of the
room and are up for grabs.
58 SERVO 11.2008
Page 58
restart matches quite often. The problem was that my initial
SuGO program demonstrated the classic Sumo behavior:
Go forward until you either see the white line or see the
opponent. If you see the line, back up and turn. If you see
the opponent, turn towards it and push! Unfortunately, it
didn’t know how to get unstuck from another robot.
What I needed was some method to break a deadlock
between the robots, and to implement that method; I
needed a better language. So, I got back on Google and
discovered NQC (Not Quite C) and the Brickx Command
Center. These two tools let me get back into my
programming comfort zone and think in terms of
functions, tasks, and variables rather than sub-VIs and
colored containers.
What I ended up with was a system whereby the robot
keeps track of how long it’s been doing the current action,
and if it gets stuck doing the same thing for too long, it
backs off and makes a random evasive maneuver. This is
implemented as two tasks: A “Move_Sugo” task that deals
with normal Sumo behavior; and a “Deadlock” task that
kicks in to break an obsessive behavior.
In the end, the implementation was pretty simple.
A number is assigned to each action the robot takes in
response to sensor input (e.g.: turning away from the
whiteline sensor is action 1; turning left based on the left
eye is action 4, etc.). The Move_Sugo task is responsible
for polling the sensors and taking the appropriate
action (setting the motor speeds, etc.). It then sets an
“Action” variable to indicate what action the robot is
currently taking.
The Deadlock task runs in the background watching
the Action variable. Whenever the variable changes to a
new value (indicating a new action), the task clears a timer
back to zero. However, if the timer ever reaches a certain
value (called BREAK_DEADLOCK), then it’s time to break
things up. The Deadlock task shuts down the Move_Sugo
task and drives the robot through a random avoidance
motion. Once that’s complete, it resets the timer and
restarts the Move_Sugo task. Just for fun, the robot plays
a tune to let everyone know that it’s not giving up, it’s just
getting a better grip.
Since the RCX brick has five program slots, I configured
four SuGO strategy programs and one test program. (All
five programs may be downloaded from the SERVO website
at www.servomagazine.com).
The four SuGO programs are almost the same except
for the type and duration of turns that are made. Whereas
a tankbot needs to use full differential steering, a
speedybot needs to keep one wheel stopped when turning.
The programs are called Elephant, Rhino, Lion, and Cheetah
to help the kids figure out which program they should use
based on their robot’s own characteristics.
The test program (or Mechanic) is used to verify that
all the robot’s cables are plugged in correctly and that the
motors are running in the correct directions. It directs the
robot through a sequence of motions that let you isolate
any problems, and then makes noises based on what the
various sensors see. Trust me, a set of eyes that are
Malone - Lego meets Sumo-edited.qxd 10/8/2008 7:07 PM
Figure 3. During the 2 1/2 hour build period, teams design and
build their SuGO bots. Many teams are family groups with moms
or dads learning alongside their kids. It’s amazing how many times
we hear the mantra: “I wish we had LEGOs like this when I was a
kid.”
incorrectly plugged into the line sensor input can make for
a very erratic Sumo bot. Before any robot can compete, it
needs to “see” the Mechanic. I have laminated cards (see
Figure 1) to show how to connect up the devices and what
each step of the test program does so the kids can prep
their own robot.
Game Day
We run SuGO events on the first Sunday of each
month, from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm. Construction starts right
at 1:00 pm and the competitions follow at 3:30 pm. We
run free community event announcements on the radio and
in the local paper during the week leading up to game day.
The local Chamber of Commerce is a great asset in getting
the word out, and if we include a photo from the last event
the paper will usually print that, as well.
The venue is a county-owned facility, made available by
the Garrett Engineering And Robotics Society (GEARS). We
Web Links
The SuGO website includes a set of SuGO rules and
specifications, a how-to guide, building instructions for a
simple SuGO robot, and online event registration.
http://sugo.gearsinc.org
Pictures from our first event.
http://sugo.gearsinc.org/event_10-15-06.shtml
Garrett Engineering And Robotics Society, Inc.
www.GEARSinc.org
The product page for DROD40 infrared sensors.
www.mindsensors.com/index.php?PAGE_id=30
Brickx Command Center.
http://bricxcc.sourceforge.net/
Not Quite C.
http://bricxcc.sourceforge.net/nqc/
Page 59
Figure 4. Once building is complete, play moves out into the arena
area. GEARS also hosts the county’s FIRST Robotics Competition
Team 1629 so we run our SuGO matches at one end of the FRC
practice field. Team 1629 members take full advantage of the
audience and demonstrate the operation of past FRC robots.
2006 and 2005 robots can be seen behind the SuGO rings, as well
as the “Rack” from the 2006 competition.
have a 1,000 sq foot room where we set up a 4’x8’ table
for all the LEGO parts, and then a bunch of folding tables
for construction (see Figures 2 & 3). The actual competition
is run in the arena section of the GEARS building (see
Figures 4 & 5). We run each competition as a very informal
event, as many of the teams are actually family groups. We
do have a weigh-in and an official sizing box, but beyond
that it’s all about the fun of learning what works and what
doesn’t. I think the most anticipated part of the day is
when we have our free-for-all when up to eight robots play
at once and it’s all about the last bot standing.
Anyone who’s a serious Sumo bot competitor will
recognize that our SuGO format embraces the joy of
building and doesn’t get much into game strategy or
software. I’m hoping that as our players get more
experience and reach the limits of my canned programs,
they will want to start an Advanced SuGO competition,
where each player programs their own robot. As it is, I’m
still waiting for someone to use the part of my program
that turns on the third motor when the opponent is directly
in front. Can you say flipper? SV
Figure 5. A dad helps a young participant to get a SuGO match
under way. Notice that the competition is not all about function.
Aesthetic design is also important. Everyone joins in with the
starting chant: Ready, Set, SuGO!
SERVO 11.2008 59
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Build a
GPS SMART LOGGER

by Michael Simpson

I recently did a GPS series covering various GPS modules and their interfaces. A
project that I have had in mind for a while was a small GPS Smart Logger. I call it
a smart logger because in addition to the GPS data, you can log various other
telemetry. You can also set the conditions and type of GPS data that gets logged.

W hen I started this project, I came up with the

following requirements:
• Self-contained operation
• Able to operate on battery for 24 hours
• Able to detect low battery levels
• Log data must be written to SD memory card
• WAAS support
• Single button operation
• LED indicators
• 3.3V operation
• Ability to log additional data
• Must cost under $150 to build
I call this a smart logger because you have the ability to
choose what does and does not get written to the SD
memory card. You can also use one of the many analog-to-
digital (A/D) lines on the DiosPro to log additional data.
I chose to operate the smart logger at 3.3V for a
couple of reasons. First, both the SD card and the GPS
module operate at that voltage. Second, the lower the
operating voltage, the more run-time for a set of batteries.
The DiosPro microcontroller chip that I have chosen to
use in this project will operate at 3.3V just as easily as it will
at 5V. The DiosPro also supports an LVD library that is
60 SERVO 11.2008
capable of detecting a low voltage drop. This is important
to prevent log file corruption when the battery dies.
The wiring diagram for the project is shown in Schematic
1. I have used a couple of techniques to make hookup easier.
Notice that the two LEDs are connected to two ports each.
Ports 0 and 2 are held low, so this provides a ground for the
LEDs. While this uses a port on the DiosPro, it does make the
connection of the LEDs much simpler, as you will see later.
Another shortcut I have taken is to tie both leads on
the record button to ports 6 and 7. The DiosPro has the
ability to hold ports 0-7 high with a weak internal resistor.
Port 6 is held low so that when the record button is
pressed, this forces port 7 low, as well.
The EM 408 GPS connection is straightforward. I have
simply connected it to the onboard UART. Notice how the
Enable lead is also tied to VCC. This needs to be done in
order for the GPS module to operate.
The SD memory card interface utilizes the Dios MMC
library and is forced to use I/O ports 10, 11, and 12. The
CS (Card Select) is configurable and can be set to any port.
In this case, I have used port 13.
Construction
You will need the following components in order to
Simpson-SV-edited.qxd 10/8/2008 4:42 PM Page 61

complete this project. Please

refer to the parts list later in Schematic 1
the article for part numbers.

Major Functional
Components:
• DiosPro 28 chip
• Dios Carrier 1
• EM 408 GPS
• SD breakout board
• EZRS232 (needed for
Programming the DiosPro)
• SD memory card

Additional Components:
• Pushbutton
• Twored LEDs
• Two green LEDs
• 100 µF capacitor
• On/off switch
• Jumpers
• Battery holder
• Battery connector clip
• Two 1K resistors
• 36-Pin female header
• 40-Pin male header
• Two 4.5” x 3.5” pieces ofpPlastic sure to solder at both the entry pad and the pad located at
• 3.3V regulator the tip of the pin. Now gently twist the regulator and insert
• Four #4 x 1” stand-offs (F-F) the remaining pin into the hole shown in Figure 5. With the
• Female crimp pins regulator attached, you can now attach the two 16-pin
• Eight #4 x 1/2” machine screws headers on the top of the board as shown in Figure 6.
• Eight #4 hex nuts Take an additional two pin header and attach it to the
• Double stick foam tape position marked J2.

You will also need a copy of the Dios compiler. This
compiler is free and can be found on the KronosRobotics
website at www.kronosrobotics.com.
• STEP 1: The first thing you need to do is to build the Dios
Carrier 1. Build it according to the included instructions but
hold off attaching the two included 16-pin headers as
shown in Figure 2. The carrier comes with a 10 µF capacitor
and this is plenty for the circuit; however, you may want
to replace it with a 100 µF capacitor. This will keep the
insertion of the memory card from resetting the DiosPro
chip. A 100 µF capacitor won’t fit on the board, so you will
have to bend the pins and insert it at an angle.
• STEP 3: You will need to cut two pieces of plastic like the
ones shown in Figure 7. I used compressed PVC cut to 4.5”
x 3.5”. The bulk of the size of the project is devoted to the
batteries used to power the device. I am using a six AA cell
pack to power my unit. If you want to use a small 9V-like
battery, this would allow you to create a much smaller
enclosure. The trade-off, however, would be less run-time.
Place four small 1/8” holes in each corner about 1/8”
from both edges. A trick I use to place the holes all in the
same place in each corner is to drill one hole in one piece.
Then use that
hole to mark
Figure 3
each of the

• STEP 2: The project requires a

3.3V regulator to power the circuit.
The most compact way to do this is
to attach it directly to the Dios
Carrier 1 board. Take the regulator
and insert pins 1 and 2 into the
board as shown in Figure 3. From
the underside of the board, bend
pin 1 on the regulator and solder it
Figure 2
in place as shown in Figure 4. Be
SERVO 11.2008 61
Simpson-SV-edited.qxd 10/8/2008 4:43 PM Page 62
Figure 4 Figure 5
corners in the other piece. You do this by flipping the piece
with the hole as needed. Once all four holes are marked,
drill them out and use this piece to make the original.
Take the completed carrier module and attach some
double stick foam tape to the bottom, then attach the carri-
er to the base as shown in Figure 8. Notice how I placed
stand-offs on the board so I can judge the distances better.
• STEP 4: The EM 408 comes with a small cable that needs
to be modified for this project. You can purchase an extra
cable from SparkFun, if needed. Cut one end and attach
the leads to small headers as shown in Figure 9.
• STEP 5: Take the SD memory breakout board and attach
a five-pin header into the first five pads shown in Figure 10.
Take a few pieces of double stick foam tape and attach
them to the memory board as shown in Figure 11. Now
take the EM 408 and attach it to the memory board as
shown in Figure
11. Make sure
Figure 7
Figure 8
Figure 9
62 SERVO 11.2008
Figure 6
the antenna connector is off to one side of the card slot.
This way, if you decide to use an external antenna it won’t
be in the way when you insert the memory card into its
socket. Place some double stick tape on the bottom of the
memory breakout board and attach it to the base as shown
in Figure 12.
• STEP 6: Take a red LED and attach a 1K resistor as shown
in Figure 13. Then cut the leads so that they can slip into the
crimp pins as shown in Figure 14. You can also solder the
leads to the crimp pins. As an option, you may connect a
small bit of heat shrink to the leads as shown in Figure 15.
Repeat the step with the green LED. If you don’t want to use
the crimp pins, you can use a two-pin female header instead.
• STEP 7: Attach two crimp pins to a pushbutton as shown
in Figure 16. You can also use a female header. The actual
connection technique depends upon the type of button that
you use. As before, you can cover the leads with heat shrink.
• STEP 8: Attach the red LED to ports
0 and 1 as shown in Figure 17.
Make sure the flat side of the LED is
connected to port 0. Attach the green
LED to ports 2 and 3. Make sure the
flat side of the LED is attached to port
2. Attach the button to ports 6 and 7
as shown in Figure 17.
• STEP 9: You need to build a battery
connector assembly. This connector
will work with the six-cell battery
Figure 10
Simpson-SV-edited.qxd 10/8/2008 4:44 PM Page 63

holder, as well as a nine-volt

battery. Take the battery clip and Figure 11 Figure 12
attach the ends to a small two-
pin female header as shown in
Figure 18. Cut the red lead at
about 3.5 inches from the clip.
Strip and solder each red lead to
a small toggle switch as shown
in Figure 18. Attach the cable
assembly to the carrier board
as shown in Figure 19. Make
sure the black lead faces the
capacitor.

• STEP 10: At this point, you

can perform an LED test. Before
you can do that, you need to build the EZRS232 Figure Figure
Figure 14
driver. The EZRS232 driver comes with a male 13 15
header so you have two choices. The first is to
install a five-pin female header in place of the
included male header as shown in Figure 20.
Another option is to create a female-to-female
connector by attaching two five-pin female
headers together and using this as an adapter.

• STEP 11: Attach the battery to the battery

clip and the LEDs should begin to light. This is
because each DiosPro chip comes preprogrammed
with a test program. Attach the EZRS232 to the
Dios Carrier as shown in Figure 21, then connect
the nine-pin cable to your PC and start up the
Dios compiler. Load and program the included file called • STEP 15: For the following connections, you need to refer
DiosLEDtest.txt into the Dios. The two LEDs should blink to Schematic 1 and the Dios Carrier 1 manual to help you
and then stop when the button is pressed. find the pin location.
Connect a jumper between the GPS TX lead (black) to
• STEP 12: I will be using some small female-to-female the carrier port 8. Next, connect the GPS RX lead (white) to
jumpers to connect the memory card and GPS module the carrier port 9.
to the Dios carrier. These can be purchased from At this point, you can test the GPS. Apply power to the
Schmartboard at www.schmartboard.com/index.asp? Dios and attach the RS-232 driver. Load and program the
a=11&id=42. Dios with the file called DiosEM408test.txt that I have
We need to create a couple of split power connectors.
In order to do this, take three of the jumpers and cut them
Figure 16 Figure 17
in half. Then connect three of the pieces to create the split
jumper shown in Figure 22. You will need to make two of
these jumpers.

• STEP 13: Take one of the split jumpers and connect

one end to the J1 pin 2 as shown in Figure 23. Then
connect one of the other ends to the GPS GND lead
(black). Connect the last end to the memory board
pin 5 (GND).
With the second split jumper, connect one end to the
J1 pin 1 as shown in Figure 23. Then connect the other
ends to the GPS VCC and Enable leads (white and red).

• STEP 14: Take a single 5” jumper and connect it to the

VCC pin (marked +) on the carrier and the VCC lead on the
memory board (pin 3) as shown in Figure 24.
SERVO 11.2008 63
Simpson-SV-edited.qxd 10/8/2008 4:45 PM Page 64

Each cluster has 8 sectors

Figure 19 Number of fat tables 2
Each FAT has 244 sectors
Root has 512 entries or 16384
bytes. 32 sectors
Fat1=0.109
Fat2=0.353
Root=0.597
Data=0.629
Memory Card Initialized
Figure 18
• STEP 17: In order to attach the
stand-offs, insert a 1/2” machine
screw through a hole in the bottom
base, then attach two nuts to the
screw and finally the 1” stand-off (as
shown back in Figures 8 and 12). This
configuration will make the six-cell
Figure 20
battery holder fit tightly inside the
enclosure. If you use another kind of
battery, you will need to adjust
accordingly.
Figure 21
• STEP 18: In order to attach the top
base, you will need to line up the
Figure 22
included. The LEDs and buttons to create some holes. There are a couple
GPS Dios should of ways to do this. One way is to cut out a piece of tracing
start to display NEMA information to the debug terminal. paper that is the same size as the base and place it over
the LEDs, then mark the LED and button positions. Before
• STEP 16: Make the following connections to complete the drilling the holes, add an extra 1/8” between the two LEDs.
hookup: For the LEDs, I drilled 5/32” holes. The button will
depend on what is used. If you use a button that mounts
• Connect the memory card pin 1 (CS) to the carrier port 13. to the top base, then you can attach wires to the leads and
• Connect the memory card pin 2 (DI) to the carrier port 10. route them to ports 6 and 7. In this case, the button can be
• Connect the memory card pin 4 (CLK) to the carrier port 12. placed in several locations.
• Connect the memory card pin 6 (DO) to the carrier port 11. You will also need to drill a hole for the power switch.
The actual diameter will depend on the switch you use.
Now insert an SD memory card into the memory card Attach the base to the stand-offs with four 1/2”
breakout board and apply power. Then plug the EZRS232 machine screws as shown in Figure 25. You will probably
driver into the have to bend the leads on the LEDs in order for them to fit
carrier and load the properly. This is normal, and if you used heat shrink as
Figure 23
program file called insulation, should not present a problem.
DiosLogEM408.txt.
This is the main Smart Logger Operation
logger program.
If the memory When power is applied to the smart logger, it will test
card is working the memory card for a file called LOGDATA2.txt. If it is not
properly, you should found, a 20 meg file will be created. This is just a place
se a message that holder file and will be truncated as necessary when
looks something collecting data.
like this:
Startup Indicators
Memory Card • Red LED blinks four times and stops — Smart Logger is
Initialized ready and in run mode.
Volume Type=FAT16 • Red and green LEDs alternate a one second blink —
Partition starts at Memory card failure.
sector 0.101 • Red LED does nothing — Battery dead.
Reserved sectors 7 • Red LED blinks four times then green LED flashes
64 SERVO 11.2008
Simpson-SV-edited.qxd 10/8/2008 4:45 PM Page 65
fast — Battery low.
Fix Indicator
• Green LED alternates on and off every second or so —
Smart Logger is ready and in run mode with no Fix.
• Green LED flickers on with one quick blink — GPS has a
SPS mode 1 Fix.
• Green LED flickers on with two quick blinks — GPS has a
DGPS or WAAS mode 2 Fix.
• Green LED flickers very fast constantly — Indicates battery
level has dropped too low for operation.
• Green LED fails to light at all — Battery dead.
Record Indicator
• Solid Red LED — When record button is pressed, the
LED will light solid red until the button is released. Press a
second time to exit record mode.
• Red LED flashed quickly — Each time a NEMA GGA or
RMC message is saved, the red LED will flash quickly.
• Red LED not flashing — Not in Record mode.
Each line of data is actually written to a buffer and
when that buffer reaches a value of 512 bytes, it is saved
to the SD memory card. When recording is stopped or the
battery level drops too low, the buffer is also saved to the
memory card.
It is not recommended that you remove the memory
card while in record mode; you could corrupt the log file.
Take the logger out of record mode first. You can stop and
start the record mode at will. When restarted, it will
append data to the end of the log file. Note that if power is
removed, the logger will start back at the beginning of the
file when power is restored.
How Well Does it Work?
On a freshly charged set of 2,000 mAh rechargeable
batteries, I get about 20 hours of record time. This could
probably be extended if the LEDs were turned off completely.
By only recording the GGA and RMC messages, we can
store about 39 hours of data in a single 20 meg file.
Because of the way I set up the addtofile function, only
65,000 sectors can be written to the file on the SD memory
card. This is about 33 meg. If you need to store more data,
then you need to add more code to flush the current file
and open up a second. Another
option would be to modify the
Figure 24
addtofile and setfilesize functions to
handle a larger sector counter.
I have included a sample log
file that I created using the Smart
Logger and I have to say it worked
perfectly. The logger is small
enough to fit into most robots that
would be using GPS and can be
made even smaller if you remove
the battery and power it from your
robot’s logic power source.
Going Further
If you look closely at the code in the DiosLogEM408.txt
program, you can see that I have added my own NEMA
messages. When a low battery is detected, a
“$GPMSG,1,LowBat*7C” is sent to the log. The DiosPro
has several unused digital and A/D ports so it would be
possible to add additional data to the log file. This would
enable you to actually record robot control telemetry, as
well as sensor data.
The DiosPro supports a sleep mode so it is possible to
log intermittent data. This would allow you to log days
worth of data on a single charge.
While the Smart Logger was built for logging GPS and
telemetry data for robotic applications, there’s no reason
you can’t use it to log positional and speed data in your
automobile.
SparkFun Data Logger
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the SparkFun data
logger module. For those of you who want a pre-built data
logger module, this may be what you are looking for. The
GPS Logger v2.4 is a self-contained module. All you need to
add is four to seven volts DC. The module has an EM406
GPS module installed on the top as shown in Figure 26. It
supports up to a 1GB SD memory card which is inserted on
the bottom as shown in Figure 27.
To power the module, I recommend a set of 2,000
mAh rechargeable batteries and a battery holder like the
one shown in Figure 28. SparkFun also sells a battery
holder with a two-pin connector that mates directly with
this module. With this power source, you will get just under
12 hours of operation with a steady stream of data writing
to the memory card. You will get a couple days of run
time if you opt for an intermittent write of once every
few minutes.
Once you insert a memory card and apply power, the
module will create a default config file called GLOGCON.
TXT as shown next. By default, the config file will be set to
mode 1, which will log all data. By changing this to mode
1, you can set the time between logs, thus putting the
module to sleep when it is not writing. Another setting
you will want to change if you are in the US is the
WAAS setting. By setting this to 1, the module’s accuracy
Figure 25
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If you decide to use the SparkFun

Figure 26 module, here are a few tips:

• The module does not monitor the

battery so it’s up to you to make
sure you don’t drain the batteries
completely. If you do, you will
probably corrupt the card and it will
require reformatting. For long-term
logging, you will want to use the
intermittent write method mentioned
previously.
Figure 27
• You need to hit the small button on
the module to stop the logging
operation. This can be a problem if you mount the
module in any kind of enclosure. You can connect an
external button to the two outside leads on the button.
This way, you can route them to any location on your
enclosure.
• To mount the module to an enclosure, place some double
stick tape on the top of the GPS antenna and stick the
module to the underside of the top of your enclosure.
• If the power connector gets in your way, try removing the
connector completely and soldering a couple of wires to
the bottom of the board.

Final Thoughts
All in all, the SparkFun data logger works pretty well
Figure 28
and presents itself in a very small package. The output on
the SD memory card is NEMA 0183 so you won’t have
will be greatly increased. any compatibility issues. If, however, you want total control
over the output and the ability to log some of your
Mode = 0 own messages such as A/D, you will want to stick with
Log What = RMC;GGA;GSA the GPS Smart Logger. The cost is about the same for
Time Between Logs = 00:10:00 both systems.
Holdoff = 5 Be sure to check for updates and downloads for this
WAAS = 0 article at www.kronosrobotics.com/Projects/GPSLOG.
Max Time to Lock = 300 shtml. SV

Parts List
The following is a breakdown of the sources for SMA to MMCX Adapter Cable (optional)
Dios Carrier 1
all the componets referenced in this project. www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_
www.kronosrobotics.com/xcart/product.
info.php?products_id=285
php?productid=16170
SPARKFUN ELECTRONICS
EM-408 GPS Module GPS Logger v2.4
800 ma 3.3V Regulator
www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_ www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_
www.kronosrobotics.com/xcart/product.
info.php?products_id=8234 info.php?products_id=8237
php?productid=16565
DF-MMC Breakout Board SCHMARTBOARD
Six-Cell Battery Pack
www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_ 5” Yellow Jumper
www.kronosrobotics.com/xcart/product.
info.php?products_id=204 www.schmartboard.com/index.asp?a=11&id=42
php?productid=16321
Nine-Pin Serial Cable KRONOS ROBOTICS
36-Pin Female Header
www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_ EZRS232
www.kronosrobotics.com/xcart/product.
info.php?products_id=65 www.kronosrobotics.com/xcart/product.
php?productid=16291
php?productid=16167
External Antenna with SMA Connector
Female Crimp Pins
(optional) DiosPro 28 Chip
www.kronosrobotics.com/xcart/product.
www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_ www.kronosrobotics.com/xcart/product.
php?productid=16261
info.php?products_id=464 php?productid=16429

66 SERVO 11.2008
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RoboResources-Nov-edited.qxd 10/6/2008
Tune in each month for a heads-up on
where to get all of your “robotics
resources” for the best prices!
Hand Tools for
Robot Construction
Imagine robot building during
Neanderthal times. Your only tools
were various rocks, maybe an antler
or two, and wood sticks that everyone
else in your camp used for throwing
at animals they wanted to eat. This
most certainly made constructing that
perfect line follower very difficult.
Be grateful you live in the 21st
century, where tools are the mainstay
of our industrial existence. Starting
with just the lowly screwdriver, an
assortment of the right tools and the
right time helps you build better,
stronger robots. In this column, we
review some of the more common
hand tools used in building the
average robot.
There’s no way to discuss every
tool you’ll possibly see or use, but
we’ll cover the most important ones
that you won’t want to be without. In
the Sources section, you’ll find online
suppliers of hand tools in various price
ranges. (To learn more about power
tools useful in the roboto building
trade, check out the April 2008
column).
What’s in Your
Toolbox?
The most common tool for any
kind of robot construction is the
screwdriver. Because screws have
different types of heads (usually
slotted or Phillips) and heads of
different sizes, you’ll need a couple
of sizes to meet most any demand.
At a minimum, get #1 and #2 Phillips,
68 SERVO 11.2008
12:18 PM Page 68
and medium- and small-tip slotted
drivers. Magnetic tips are handy,
but not necessary. For working
with slotted screws, get a small and
medium size flat blade screwdriver.
If space in your toolbox is limited,
consider a set with one screwdriver
handle and multiple bits. (You just
exchange the bits depending on the
screw you’re working with.) Whatever
you buy, don’t cheap out. You’ll use
your screwdrivers more than most
any other tool, so test the grip for
comfort. The plastic should not dig
into your palm. Try soft (rubber)
coated grips for extra comfort.
Miniature fasteners (those
4-40 and under) require smaller
screwdrivers. Purchase a set of #00
and #0 Phillips, and small-bladed
slotted “jeweler’s” screwdrivers.
Standard and needle-nose pliers
are the next most common tool used
in making robots. Pliers hold things
with a stronger grip than you can
apply with just your fingers. A pair
of both standard and needle-nose
pliers is sufficient for 90% of all jobs.
Avoid using either one as a wrench
for tightening bolts and nuts. They’ll
strip the head of the fastener.
A pair of “lineman’s” pliers can
be used for bigger jobs, and they
provide a sharp cutter for clipping
non-hardened wire (don’t use them to
clip steel aircraft cable or music wire).
If your robot uses nut and screw
construction, you’ll want a nut driver
to secure the nut while you’re tighten-
ing the screw with the screwdriver (or
vice versa). Nut drivers are typically
sold in sets for nuts from #2 size
to 3/8”.
You may find some other types
of wrenches useful. Locking grip
pliers — such as the Vise-Grip brand —
incorporate a mechanism that literally
locks around whatever object you
want to hold, saving your hands
considerable effort. There’s also box
wrenches, socket wrenches, adjustable
wrenches, and a slew of others, but
unless you’re building the larger metal
combat robots, you probably will have
little use for these.
A mainstay of robot building is a
hacksaw, purchase one with a sturdy
metal frame. Look for a tool that
allows quick blade changes, yet holds
the blade securely. Common blade
sizes are 10 and 12 inches long, and
many hacksaw frames are adjustable
to accommodate either one. The
smaller size is recommended when
working with metal, as the short
blade gives you more control of
the tool. Purchase an assortment of
carbide-tipped blades in 18 and 24
teeth-per-inch (tpi).
Though most robots are not
made with nails, a standard 16-ounce
hammer is a useful tool for any work-
shop. You might use it to hammer a
small metal bracket into a new shape,
or softly knock at the corners of your
robot to ensure the frame is square.
You will need drill bits and a
drill if you want to make any holes.
I personally recommend a small
electric drill rather than a hand drill,
RoboResources-Nov-edited.qxd 10/6/2008
but either will work as long as your
robot is made of plastic or wood. Drill
bits are commonly sold in convenient
sets. Opt for the better quality
titanium oxide coated drill bits.
They cost more, but they’ll stay
sharp longer, which means you won’t
have to replace or resharpen them as
much. The typical set contains bits
with sizes from 1/16” to 1/4”. If and
when you need to replace a bit, you
can purchase them separately in just
the size you need.
You’ll want a tape measure if
you are building robots from scratch.
I prefer a six to 10 foot metal tape
measure with a spring-loaded
mechanism that automatically retracts
the tape. If most of your robots are
small though, a compact three to six
foot cloth or plastic tape measure may
be more appropriate. You can find
these at fabric and notions stores in
various sizes and types.
Last, but certainly not least is a
pair of safety glasses. As you cut,
hammer, or chisel your robot into
shape, bits of material are bound to
go airborne, and if you’re unlucky,
some of this debris may take a
bee-line into your eye. You obviously
want to avoid this, and a pair of good
safety glasses or goggles is your best
defense from a painful, costly, and
possibly debilitating eye injury. Be
sure they prevent material from
entering the eyes from the sides as
well. This requires a full wrap-around
design.
I wear a pair of 1970’s industrial
safety glasses that provide a
wrap-around shield over the temples;
these are popular among machinists.
A really good pair can be fairly
expensive because of the plastic used
in the lens. A less costly approach
suitable for use in machine shops is
rubber safety goggles. These use a
nearly unbreakable, optically clear
rubber to form the lens and body.
They’re available at most any
hardware or tool store.
Word to the wise: Stay away from
the very cheap goggles and glasses.
Because of poor manufacturing, they
may distort your vision or fit poorly.
12:19 PM Page 69
Where to Get
Your Tools
I always recommend that you buy
only the best tools you can, because
better tools not only last longer, they
perform better. But it’s not always
practical to buy the best. When
necessary, you can purchase low-cost
versions that don’t require accuracy
or heavy-duty construction. A $1
screwdriver will do the same basic job
as a $10 one, but it may not last as
long or feel as good in your hands.
Shop wisely, and you can better
afford all the tools you need while
still maintaining reasonable quality.
For basic, inexpensive tools, try the
selection at the local discount or
dollar store. I’ve found perfectly good
screwdrivers, utility knives, and other
basics at these locations.
I always prefer buying better
quality when buying wrenches and
pliers, because a cheap tool here
often results in ruined parts. You
don’t need mechanic’s grade tools,
but you want to stay away from the
mass-produced junk. Something
middle of the road will do. Quality
name-brand hand tools designed
for the do-it-yourselfer are available
at hardware stores, online, and
department stores. Craftsman
and Crescent are representative of
this group.
Sources
Of course, your local hardware
and home improvement stores are
good places to start when building
up your tool chest, however, there are
literally thousands of online sources
for tools. I’ve provided just a sampling
of them here. Remember that many
of the regular advertisers in SERVO
and Nuts & Volts carry hand tools so
check them out first.
Enco Manufacturing Co.
www.use-enco.com
Enco is a premier mail order
source for shop tools, power tools,
hand tools, production tools (lathes,
mills, hydraulic presses, metal brakes,
you name it), bits, saws, casting
materials, plastics, hardware safety
equipment, and more.
FDJ On Time
www.fdjtool.com
For the jewelry maker, FDJ/On
Time is a “one-stop shop” for
miniature jewelry tools, casting
equipment, soldering supplies,
electroplating gear, cleaners, mold
making equipment, and wax working
tools. They offer an extensive list of
investment casting supplies (furnaces,
investment, etc.). A printed catalog
is available.
Harbor Freight Tools
www.harborfreight.com
Harbor Freight built a business
on selling value-priced tools, much
of it “off-brand,” but still perfectly
workable. They offer hand and
power tools, pneumatic tools, and
even metal mills and lathes. Retail
stores in selected areas of North
America; check the website for a
store locator.
Irwin Industrial Tools
www.irwin.com
Irwin makes the famous Vise-Grip
locking hand tools, along with several
other well-known brands. This is a
good site for learning about common
shop tools and how they’re used.
Micro-Mark
www.micromark.com
Micro-Mark manufactures
precision and miniature tools of all
types, including desktop mills and
lathes, as well as hand tools, bits, and
other accessories, small hand-operated
motorized tools, casting supplies,
and raw metal, plastic, and wood.
Minicraft
www.minicrafttools.com
Sellers of Minicraft precision
power tools (sanders, saws), as well
as quality hand tools.
Penn State Industries
www.pennstateind.com
Hand and motorized tools (mostly
SERVO 11.2008 69
RoboResources-Nov-edited.qxd 10/6/2008 12:19 PM Page 70

for wood). The Library section contains information about Sears Brand
the tools (many in Adobe Acrobat PDF format), as well as www.sears.com
plans for home-based projects (no robots that I could find). Sears sells lots of stuff, but of prime interest to robot
builders are their tools. You can buy Sears tools at their
Rockler Woodworking and Hardware local stores or online.
www.rockler.com
Rockler carries hand and power woodworking tools, Stanley Supply and Services
hardware, and wood stock. www.stanleysupplyservices.com
Tools for electronics — basically everything you need,
S*K Hand Tool Corporation including handheld meters and scopes, precision hand
www.skhandtool.com tools, shop supplies, soldering stations, you name it.
Wrenches, ratchets, and other great hand tools. Buy a Wide selection.
set when you’re young and they’ll grow old with you.
Toolsforless.com
www.toolsforless.com
Power tools, hand tools. Stocks some 50,000 power
and hand tools, hardware, parts, and accessories.

Vermont American Corporation

www.vermontamerican.com
Tool manufacturer. Saw blades, screwdriver bits,
router products, drill bits, abrasives. Browsable Web
catalog; products are available through retail stores like
Lowe’s and Home Depot.

Zona Tool Company

www.zonatool.com
Small precision tools for hobbies and crafts. Product
line includes: clamps, pin vices, small hack saws, jeweler’s
saws, metal and oxide shaping tools (replacement bits for
 Dremel and similar tools), and sanding blocks. Zona tools
ClassPack and CoroBot are most commly found at the local hobby store. SV
…where Virtuality meets Reality

x puts a virtual robot in the hands THE OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, AND CIRCULATION STATEMENT OF SERVO
of every student MAGAZINE, Publication Number: 1546-0592 is published monthly. Subscription price
x lowers the cost of project is $24.95. 7. The complete mailing address of known office of Publication is T&L
 development without effecting Publications, Inc., 430 Princeland Ct., Corona,Riverside County, CA 92879-1300.
long-term results Contact Person: Tracy Kerley. Telephone: (951) 371-8497. 8. Complete Mailing
x reduces lab down-time address of Headquarters or General Business Office of Publisher is T&L Publications,
Inc., 430 Princeland Ct, Corona, CA 92879. 9. The names and addresses of the
 x physics-based simulation
Publisher, and Associate Publisher are: Publisher, Larry Lemieux, 430 Princeland Ct.,
environment
Corona, CA. 92879; Associate Publisher, Robin Lemieux, 430 Princeland Ct.,
x multiple licensing options Corona, CA 92879. 10. The names and addresses of stockholders holding one per-
 available cent or more of the total amount of stock are: Jack Lemieux, 430 Princeland Ct.,
Corona, CA 92879; Larry Lemieux, 430 Princeland Ct., Corona, CA 92879; Audrey
Lemieux, 430 Princeland Ct., Corona, CA 92879. 11. Known Bondholders,
www.corobot.com
®
www.corobot.net

1-800-641-2676 Morgagees, and other security holders: None. 12. Tax Status: Has not changed dur-
ing preceding 12 months. 13. Publication Title: SERVO Magazine 14. Issue Date for
Circulation Data: October 2007-September 2008. 15. The average number of copies
of each issue during the proceeding twelve months is: A) Total number of copies
printed (net press run); 10,812 B) Paid/Requested Circulation (1) Mailed Outside
County subscriptions: 5,658 (2) Mailed In-County subscriptions: 0 (3) Paid
Distribution Outside the Mail including Sales through dealers and carriers, street ven-
dor, and counter sales and other paid distribution outside USPS: 1,809 (4) Paid

LINEAR
Distribution by other classes of mail through the USPS: 0; C) Total Paid Distribution:
7,467; D) Free or Nominal Rate Distribution by mail and outside the mail (1) Free or
Nominal Rate Outside-County Copies: 0 (2) Free or Nominal Rate In-County Copies:
0 (3) Free or Nominal Rate Copies Mailed at other classes through the USPS: 0 (4)

SERVOS Free or Nominal Rate Distribution Outside the mail: 800; E) Total Free or Nominal
Rate Distribution: 800; F) Total Distribution: 8,267; G) Copies not distributed: 2,545;
H) Total: 10,812; Percent paid circulation: 90.32%. Actual number of copies of the
single issue published nearest the filing date is September 2008; A) Total number of

Radio Control copies printed (net press run) 9,871; B) Paid/Requested Circulation (1) Mailed
Outside County subscriptions: 5,398 (2) Mailed In-County subscriptions: 0 (3) Paid

Industrial Distribution Outside the Mail including Sales through dealers and carriers, street ven-
dor, and counter sales and other paid distribution outside USPS: 1,806 (4) Paid

Robotics Distribution by other classes of mail through the USPS: 0; C) Total Paid Distribution:
fi 7,204; D) Free or Nominal Rate Distribution by mail and outside the mail (1) Free or
Nominal Rate Outside-County Copies: 0 (2) Free or Nominal Rate In-County Copies:
0 (3) Free or Nominal Rate Copies Mailed at other classes through the USPS: 0 (4)
Free or Nominal Rate Distribution Outside the mail: 1,300; E) Total Free or Nominal
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H) Total: 9,871; Percent paid circulation: 84.71%. I certify that these statements are
correct and complete. Larry Lemieux, Publisher - 9/29/08.

70 SERVO 11.2008
Page 71.qxd 10/7/2008 4:13 PM Page 71

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WebstoreNov08.qxd 10/8/2008 7:09 AM Page 72

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Appetizer.qxd 10/7/2008 3:08 PM Page 76
Why Just Build a Robot? Be a Robot!
-Kon is North America’s longest
A running national anime
convention. It was first held in 1990
and it has been growing ever since.
A-Kon 2007 had an attendance of
more than 14,000. Quite a few of
those attendees are cosplayers: fans
who dress and act like their favorite
characters from TV, anime, comics,
books, and video games. To give you
an idea of how big this thing is, A-Kon
2008 set a new Guinness world
record for the most people dressed as
video game characters in one room
(700+). Video game characters aren’t
even the most popular type of
cosplay. I thought with all these guys
in one place, there were bound to be
a lot of robot costumes. So, I set out
with my camera to see what I could
find. When I was still several blocks
away from the event location, I
spotted a group of Dragonball Z
characters marching down the street.
In the park across from the hotel, a
group of female super heroes battled
ninjas, to the surprise of workers
76 SERVO 11.2008
by R. Steven Rainwater
in nearby office buildings.
Once inside, there was no
shortage of robots, androids, and
cyborgs. Within minutes of walking
into the lobby, I spotted a Super
Vandread robot fighting machine, pos-
ing for curious bystanders who kept
their distance from the dangerous
robot. One bystander who considered
danger irrelevant was a Borg,
complete with motorized appendages,
lasers, blinking lights, and surrounded
by a cloud of self-generating fog.
If Transformers are your thing,
you’ll be happy to know there were
numerous Autobots and Decepticons
in attendence including Arcee — a
pink, female Autobot. Androids were
in plentiful supply, as well, and one
of the best this year was R. Dorothy
Wayneright, the android companion
of Roger Smith from the anime series
The Big O. Dorothy was part of a
group of cosplayers who won the Best
of Show award for their depiction of
Big O characters.
In addition to robot cosplayers, I
also made several other unexpected
robot sightings at A-Kon 2008. In
the dealer room were a variety of
imported Japanese robot toys —
Transformers, Robotech mecha,
Gundams, and other more obscure
robots. One dealer was selling tiny
little robot figures for gamers. Leaving
the dealers room, I ran across another
room full of Virtual World Battlemech
combat simulator pods. The pods are
networked together and exist in a
common virtual universe. Inside the
pod, you are in control of a giant,
bipedal robot battle machine and you
fight it out with other players.
One unusual robot in attendance
this year was Gir, the cute little robot
from Invader Zim. Gir wasn’t a
costume or a toy. Dallas resident,
Remia, had Gir tattooed on her arm.
When I asked her why she chose Gir,
she said, “Gir is kinda the reject robot
who was slapped together on the
spot for Zim. But the motivation for
me was I’m kinda like Gir, very easily
distracted at times and kinda off the
Appetizer.qxd 10/7/2008 3:09 PM Page 77
wall.” Her robot tattoo has earned her the name
“Gir Girl” among locals.
After a long day photographing cosplayers, I walked
across the street to find some dinner at the restaurants
surrounding the Plaza of the Americas ice-skating rink.
Along the way, a blue-haired catgirl complained that the
hotel never warns the restaurants of the impending A-Kon
crowds. Every year, nearby restaurants run out of food,
limiting the eating choices of hungry event participants.
As I sat at a table eating a fast food trans-fat burger,
I watched aliens, robots, and super-heroes wandering
through the crowds. A collection of space pirates skated
by on the ice. It’s a very different experience from the
average robot event I attend. There was no clear line
separating robot from human. A glimpse of the future
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SERVO 11.2008 77
Then&Now.qxd 10/6/2008 11:42 AM Page 78
Then N O W
As long as there have been two
people gathered together who have
different ideas and skill sets, there
have been competitions of some sort.
The recent Summer Olympics was an
extreme example of the world’s finest
who gathered together in China to
prove who the best athlete in many
categories was. Old records fell
as younger or more experienced
athletes swam or ran faster than ever
before, jumped higher or further, or
performed some series of athletic
motions with more finesse than the
others. An American swimmer walked
away with a record eight gold medals.
We humans love to present our
finest to the world in hopes that our
country’s competitors are better than
anyone else. Robotics is no different
as we are all proud of our coolest,
fastest, meanest, smartest, or most
destructive robot of all and want to
show it to the world in some sort
of competition.
In this year’s April issue of SERVO,
I touched upon some of the more
popular contests such as the Seattle
Robotics Society’s Robothon, the
Portland Robotics PDXBot robot
competition (both of which have been
postponed due to the need of
leadership), the Robotics Society of
Southern California’s annual robot
fairs, and a few of the national
events. As I was more concerned with
the exhibits by different groups, I
really did not cover the complexities
of these events and the many more
held around the world.
I also had a few responses from
78 SERVO 11.2008
a n d
ROBOT COMPETITIONS
AND CONTESTS
b y T o m C
readers mentioning that I did not
cover their event or other events that
were particularly noteworthy. I spoke
with a few personally, and related that
I can never cover the wide spectrum
of any topic in modern robotics
technology and I just try to cover a
few unique aspects of a particular
article’s subject. This certainly applies
to the many robot exhibitions and
competitions as there are so many
types of contests and competitions
these days. In this article, I again
will highlight a few of the more well
known robotics contests in a bit more
detail, but, this in no way represents
the very best competitions. They just
happen to be a few of the contests I
know a bit more about.
Competition can be as simple as
one neighbor watching another build
a robot. That neighbor then decides
that he can build an even better one,
and so on. It can also arise in a school
or university where two or more
students build a robot that can “one
up” another group of student’s
machine. Sometimes a competitive
urge develops when a person watches
a contest on TV or reads about one.
Some of the best competitions
arise when sponsors decide to develop
a contest with a specific set of rules
and award prizes to the best in the
contest. These can be a simple science
fair at a local high school, a nation-
wide series of contests such as FIRST,
or even a government sponsored
contest such as the DARPA off-road
Grand Challenge or Urban Challenge
with a first prize of $2 million.
a r r o l l
Contestants benefit as do the
sponsors who can use the winning
technology to further enhance military
or other government projects at a
far cheaper cost than handing out
research grants. I’m going to outline
a few of the more widely-spread types
of contests and, as I mentioned
before, these are just a drop in the
bucket of the many very interesting
competitions around the world
involving experimental, amateur, and
downright unique robots.
The Seattle Robotics Society
Robo-Magellan Contest
The varieties of entrants in
robotics contests can vary from simple
kit-built wheeled robots exhibited by
elementary level kids in a local event
to the million dollar autonomous cars
and SUVs entered into the Grand
Challenge series held in multi-mile
desert and suburban environments.
I had the honor of being one of
the judges for the Seattle Robotics
Society’s Robo-Magellan contest
for several years, held at the SRS
Robothon at Seattle Center. This
contest was envisioned as an
affordable alternative to these
government sponsored contests and
has spread to many robotics groups
across the country. Entries are nothing
short of amazing.
The robots that I’ve seen over the
years range from a few pounds to
maybe 30 or more, and sizes range
from a small, remote-controlled car
chassis to 18 inches long and 14
Then&Now.qxd 10/6/2008 11:42 AM Page 79
inches high, or so. They must weigh
less than 50 pounds and fit within a
four foot cube for the duration of the
race. Some crawl away from the
starting point at a speed slower than
a stroll in the park and others race
away at breakneck speeds. I’ve seen
contestants running behind their
speeding Robo-Magellan robot,
barely able to keep up, with the
safety tether in their hand ready for
an emergency stop.
FIGURE 1. Robo-Magellan contestant.
Figure 1 (courtesy of SRS) shows
a contestant holding the safety tether
in the October 2006 competition.
Wireless safety switches are admissi-
ble, but most contestants use a wired
tether. In the early years, we had a bit
of trouble with the GPS satellites
being shadowed from the robots by a
high wall or even the Space Needle,
but this made the contest a bit more
challenging when the competitors
transferred navigation to odometry
and compass navigation.
Newer and more sensitive
receivers solved a lot of the GPS
reception problems in later years. I
never saw an entry that wasn’t first
class, though some did manage to
get lost or stuck behind obstacles.
As stated in the rules set up by
the SRS, “Robo-Magellan is a robotics
competition emphasizing autonomous
navigation and obstacle avoidance
over varied, outdoor terrain. Robots
have three opportunities to navigate
from a starting point to an ending
point and are scored on the time
required to complete the course with
opportunities to lower the score based
on contacting intermediate points.”
The ‘chicken switch’ tether I
mentioned previously is allowed to
disable the robot when it is deemed
unable to continue or will run into a
person or obstacle, but all control is
autonomous and navigation is by GPS
coordinates (no differential GPS to
enhance the accuracy), visual cameras
(to avoid obstacles and locate the 18”
orange traffic cones), and on-board
compasses.
The contest is held outdoors (for
best GPS reception) and is usually on
sidewalks, grass, and has some unique
ramps and turns. The contests at the
Seattle Center have always attracted
a crowd of people who excitedly
follow the robots around the course.
Sometimes a person with an orange
jacket or hat will confuse the robot
so that it deviates from the course
because it thinks it has seen the
orange cone.
It’s always fun to explain to the
crowd just how intelligent the robots
are and why they do certain things on
the course, (which can be longer than
1,000 feet). Scoring is based on time,
but points are also given for locating
and touching all waypoint cones, so
slower robots have frequently bested
the speedier machines. Contestants
are given the course coordinates just
before the contest and are allowed to
traverse the course themselves before
their robot makes its run (a maximum
of 15 minutes is allowed for each
run). Other groups have used desert
courses, woods, and strictly urban
courses with only concrete and
asphalt. To make the course more
interesting, overhead trees, inclines,
curbs, garbage cans, park benches,
shrubs, and even streams have been
included. Target cones are hidden
from view at the starting points and
at the waypoints. Go to www.robot
hon.org/robothon/robo-magellan
for more detailed rules and
information.
IEEE Micromouse
Competitions
Running a maze with a robot has
always been a draw and people have
built robots to solve simple mazes
since before the microcomputer age.
In 1977, IEEE Spectrum magazine
announced a ‘micromouse’ contest
that would be held in New York in
1979. That gave time for the 6,000
initial entrants to design, build, and
fine-tune their creations. Fifteen
finalists were selected for the
competition to be run in a 10’ by 10’
maze. The winner of this first contest
was a simple, high-speed wall-follower
that used no sort of ‘intelligence’ to
seek its goal. These types of mice
simply turn a certain direction when
detectors locate the absence of a wall
and continue turning in that same
direction for the same reason,
many times until they eventually
(accidentally!) reach the goal. Rules
were changed to eliminate these
types of entries.
As the contest series gained
popularity in the early 80s and groups
around the world became interested
in participating, the rules became
more defined. ‘Mice’ appeared in all
sorts of forms. David Buckley of the
UK came up with Quester in 1981 —
a large 8” by 7-1/2” by 5-1/2’
micromouse that used a vision system
to detect the maze walls and bump
sensors when those sensors failed.
(See Figure 2).
Buckley gained a bit of fame
when Quester was featured in one
of the earliest non-industrial robot
magazines, Robotics Age. The First
World Micromouse Competition was
held in Tsukuba, Japan in 1985 and
the top six winners were all locals.
After a few sporadic contests in the
US with low attendance and few
FIGURE 2. Quester from the UK.
SERVO 11.2008 79
Then&Now.qxd 10/6/2008 11:42 AM Page 80
entrants, the contest became quite
popular and is now often held in
conjunction with electronic business
conferences, especially where
IEEE attends.
What is a Micromouse?
A mouse must be self-contained
and totally autonomous, no larger
than 25 cm by 25 cm (about 10” x
10”) and there is no limit on the
height. It cannot, however, move over
or damage the maze walls. The maze
itself consists of a square pattern of
16 by 16 squares (18 by 18 cm each),
with 5 cm high walls of 1.2 cm
thickness. The entire maze is enclosed
by an outside wall and the mouse is
placed at an outside square and
must find its way all by itself to four
squares at the center of the maze.
This destination is so positioned
that wall-hugging mice will be unable
to locate it. Of course, the maze is set
up ahead of time and hidden from
view until just before the contest
begins. The mouse has 10 minutes to
complete the run from the start to the
center four squares where there is a
wooden goal post. Obviously, the
FIGURE 3. Micromouse maze at
Cal State Chico contest.
FIGURE 4. Micromouse maze variations.
80 SERVO 11.2008
fastest mouse wins. Figure 3 shows
the maze at a contest at Cal State
Chico. Note the detector protrusions
over the walls in both Figures 3 and 4.
One entry at a contest that I had
the pleasure of judging back in 1988
at Wescon featured a very unique
mouse. It could not have weighed
more than 100 grams and had a pair
of sensor arms made from PC board
material that extended over the walls
on both sides of the maze paths. I’m
guessing that the arms had a series of
IR photo transistors and IR LED pairs
to detect the presence or absence of
walls, and to keep the robot centered
in the path. This little sucker would zip
forward and stop at each 18 cm
square, examine the walls present,
and would then proceed or quickly
turn a precise 90 degrees as required,
and quickly step to the next square.
It rapidly examined almost every
possible square and found the center
fairly fast.
The amazing thing was when the
contestant placed the mouse back in
the square, the mouse quickly sped
to the center four squares by the
absolute best route, sometimes
making deliberate 45 degree turns
to save time. Needless to say, it won
first place.For rules, check out
www.ieee.uc.edu/main/files/sac20
07/mm_rules.pdf. There are many
other good sites that have both rules
and building techniques available.
FIRST — For Inspiration and
Recognition of Science and
Technology
I could not write about robot
contests without mentioning the very
popular FIRST competition that began
back in 1992 with 28 teams compet-
ing in a New Hampshire high school
gym. This competition series is the
vision of one of my favorite robotic
innovators, Dean Kamen, best known
as the inventor of the Segway
Transporter. FIRST competitions are for
high school students across the US
and other countries. NASA and other
major US companies have been
long-time supporters of these events.
One example of a challenge was
one year teams competed against
each other by controlling their
individual robots to push and pass
large rubber ‘Trackballs’ around the
field of play. (Two of the five winning
high school teams were sponsored
by NASA centers.)
The mission and vision of the
FIRST Robotics Competitions, FRC, is
described this way, by Kamen:
“Our mission is to inspire young
people to be science and technology
leaders, by engaging them in exciting
mentor-based programs that build
science, engineering, and technology
skills, that inspire innovation, and
that foster well-rounded life
capabilities including self-confidence,
communication, and leadership.”
BEST — Boosting
Engineering, Science, and
Technology
BEST is also a non-profit,
volunteer-based organization whose
mission is to inspire middle and
high school age students to pursue
careers in engineering, science, and
technology through participation in a
sports-like, science and engineering-
based robotics competition.
Their vision is to excite the
nation's students about engineering,
science, and technology to unlock
their imagination and discover their
potential.
Final Results
I’ve only touched on a few of
the more visible robotics contests.
The many variations of BattleBots that
was so popular a half dozen years
ago on the Comedy Channel are still
held across the world. Robot Sumo
and other physical robot vs. robot
contests are a mainstay of most robot
organization’s events. If any of these
competitions sound the least bit
interesting to you, I encourage you to
go to any of the hundreds of websites
for information and help your own
group of robotics enthusiasts develop
some super fun events in your home
town. SV
Tom Carroll can be reached via email
at TWCarroll@aol.com.
RoboLinks-Index Nov08.qxd 10/8/2008 9:24 PM Page 81

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