Servo - August 2015

terrain with its suspension.

To allow the Bogie to tackle some terrain untethered, we uploaded a simple dead-reckoning program and set up a simple obstacle course. The bot tackled binders and ramps with ease, all while keeping the center platform nice and steady.

To expand the functionality of the Bogie, we added the Actobotics parallel gripper. With the ample mounting holes on the Bogie, it was easy to slap it on the front of the bot, and it only took a few lines of code to bring the claw to life. We were pleased to see that the claw was able to grip its precious payload (in this case, a lime) while it drove over the terrain.

The Power is Yours

The Runt Rovers are meant to be the ideal platform for novice roboticists to get started with robots. Can a kit with DC motors and microcontroller boards be accessible to whippersnappers that are more used to the simple charm of things like LEGOs? We think it can be. As known robotics fanatics, we actually get a lot of questions from friends and coworkers about what might be a good robot kit to get their kid or niece or nephew. A lot of times the requestor is someone looking for something cool and fun that has more substance than just another video game.

We’re usually informed that the kid is precocious but that they don’t want to hit them with anything too technical or overwhelming. We really think the Runt Rovers fit those criteria to a tee (and also the other very important criteria of not wanting to break the bank on a present).

Something like the Sprout goes together with no tools, and as long as you have a board (and a motor driver), you’re off to the races. As long as the new roboticist can copy and paste code, the robot will be up and running. Then, curiosity will inevitably strike — what if I change this character here, or add a line there? All of a sudden, you have a new roboticist excited because they’ve made a small electronic device come to life all by themselves. We can’t think of a better gift than that. SV