Servo - September 2010

I’ve included both my simple SONAR program and the Makefile in a zip file you can find at www.servomagazine.com under Mr. Roboto as RobotoNXC.zip.

Final Notes

We’ve just touched the surface of what you can do with NXC. For instance, there is a way to program and “talk” to the NXT brick via Bluetooth. If there’s enough interest, I can do an article on that. There are also other tools that are more graphically oriented for the Mac that present some of the functionality that Windows users get with Bricx Command Center. You can find them at: http://bricxcc.sourceforge.net/ utilities.html. I haven’t investigated these yet, but it looks like there’s a lot to play with (see Figure 6).

Thanks again to those selfless individuals that toil away on open source. Those of us who aren’t as adept definitely reap the benefits of your largesse!

Figure 6. More tools (toys) for Mac NXT programmers.

That wraps up another Mr. Roboto column. As usual, if you have any robotics questions that you would like me to help you figure out, don’t hesitate to drop me an email at roboto@servomagazine.com. I’ll be happy to work on it! Until next time, keep on building those robots! SV

STEER WINNING ROBOTS WITHOUT SERVOS!

Perform proportional speed, direction, and steering with only two Radio/Control channels for vehicles using two separate brush-type electric motors mounted right and left with our mixing RDFR dual speed control. Used in many successful competitive robots. Single joystick operation: up goes straight ahead, down is reverse. Pure right or left twirls vehicle as motors turn opposite directions. In between stick positions completely proportional. Plugs in like a servo to your Futaba, JR, Hitec, or similar radio. Compatible with gyro steering stabilization. Various volt and amp sizes available. The RDFR47E 55V 75A per motor unit pictured above. www.vantec.com