Servo - September 2011

Getting Serial

was reasonable because laptops still had DB9s themselves. It does appear that something like the FTDI adapter might be somewhat more expensive for a small producer, and this might have wreaked havoc on the group’s price point. The Mark III is available for only $92, and we can understand how some modifications might take the kit out of the preferred double digit territory. That irony, however, is also a victory for the Mark III.

The moral of this story is that good robotics kits — to stay relevant in a world that upgrades at the speed of Moore’s Law — need to evolve and adapt. One way to do that is to demonstrate that leaving behind the vestiges of old and increasingly outmoded technology need not be an expensive, difficult, or unsightly affair.

Making Its Mark

Even though the Mark III was originally developed years ago, and even though we had been slowly making modifications to the kit since 2007, the tenacious robot has remained an exciting platform and a worthy opponent even for the newest kits. We are pleased to report that some of those newest kits that we’ve worked on recently (like the Robot Shop Rover and the upcoming USB I/O Explorer from Digilent) actually come with USB ports. For all of those folks with beloved kits that they have worked on over the years or new kits that inexplicably retain an RS-232 port, the process of upgrading your robot to modern-day USB technology is a surprisingly affordable and painless process. With one simple adapter from the appropriately named Future Technology Devices International (FTDI), you too can bring your robot into the future and keep on tinkering.

Recommended Websites

www.junun.org/MarkIII http://parts.digikey.com/1/parts/ 1934884-mod-usb-rs232-embeded- retro-db9f-db9-usb-f.html www.ftdichip.com

$12, and will allow for the addition of servos, switches, and sensors. With our new USB adapter humbly taking up only the real estate of its DB9 predecessor, attaching the sensor board to the top of the Mark III could be done without incident.

The little robot that could is ready for its next evolution, and it is sure to show up again as an able competitor with some of our future projects. SV

Special Thanks

Bill Woolley, for letting us commandeer his kit!

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