FIGURE 5. SYM-1.
robotics program office within the
Naval Sea Systems Command so he
could concentrate on mobile robots.
His book covers many robots that he
has designed, from Walter, Crawlers I
and II, Modbot to MDARS, but his
Robarts are his most famous.
Bart Everett’s Robart
Series of Robots
During the 1980-82 time period,
Bart designed and built Robart I as
his thesis project at the Naval
Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA.
Figure 4 shows how Bart laid out all
of the components and sub-systems in
an aluminum framework of angle
extrusions, screwed and bolted — not
welded. This is the easiest way for an
experimenter to construct a
large robot and modify it at a
later time. This robot used a
Synertek SYM-1 single board
computer (Figure 5). Though
not as popular as the KIM-1,
the SYM-1 6502 development
board was used in many
experimental robots of the
early ‘80s. Robart I was
designed to patrol a home
using a layered hierarchy of
behavior modes and could
announce specific alerts and internal
situations through a National
Semiconductor Digitalker DT1050
speech synthesized chip set. It could
search out its charging station when
the batteries were low and the sensor
suite could detect motion by optical or
ultrasonic methods, plus many other
phenomena through many other
sensor types. Robart I laid the way for
many other types of sentry/security
robots to follow.
Robart II was designed, built, and
modified over a period from 1982 to
1992. The robot was started in his
basement workshop in Virginia. Bart
was transferred to the Naval Ocean
Systems Center (later called the Space
and Naval Warfare Systems Center) in
1986 and continued his work on this
second in the series of robots (Figure
6). Despite being constructed from
“hobbyist-grade components,” as he
states, it lasted 20 years in operation,
and was continually powered up for
four of those years. It was in continual
communication with an external
IBM-AT computer.
Robart III was the final in the
series and, as you can see in Figure 7,
it is anthropomorphic of sorts, with a
revolving head and one arm that
appears to be a Gatling gun but, in
reality, is a pneumatic gun that shoots
harmless darts or rubber bullets.
Using the popular A-BEC motorized
wheelchair wheels, it has a series of
PIR sensors around its neck, an
expensive industrial SICK scanner in
the front of its base, and a nicely
molded shell. Bart’s great book not
only covers the development of
these three robots but outlines the
geometry and physics behind many
of the popular sensors still used today
in robotics applications.
Build Your Own
Robot!
FIGURE 6. Robart II. Photo courtesy
of the Space and Naval Warfare
Systems Center, San Diego.
FIGURE 7. Robart III. Photo courtesy
of the Space and Naval Warfare
Systems Center, San Diego.
I would be remiss to not include a
great book by Karl Lunt entitled Build
Your Own Robot. Published in 2000,
Karl’s book is a compilation of over
50 of his very popular articles from
SERVO’s sister publication, Nuts &
Volts. At 575 pages — each filled with
gems of knowledge for the robot
experimenter — this is also one book
to have on your bookshelf. His
“Amateur Robotics” column in Nuts &
Volts from 1992 until 1998 produced
almost 70 articles. Many readers kept
asking for a collection of his articles
and this book is the result. Karl is second to none in software development
for robots, but you’ll also find all
sorts of information on driver and
control systems, and interfacing
microcontrollers, especially the
Motorola 68hc11. Karl has built
robots from all sorts of bases,
including one from a plastic tackle
box. As a good friend of mine and a
fellow member of the Seattle Robotics
Society, Karl has always been quick
to help anyone learn about and build
robots. This book will be quite
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