Les HallHere we see Ivan's playground, or his place of birth actually. You can see his base in red with the first stepper motor in place, snugly fit. Ivan's base needs holes to secure this base down which I will drill in time. to the right is Ivan's 12V battery with 7.5 Amp-hours. That's enough juice to run Ivan moving continuously for two hours. Ivan's BeefyDuino is bottom center and his sensor head is to the lower left. Finally, to the lower right are the remaining two Stepper motors in Ivan's construction.
I was amazed when I held the base in my hands as a feeling of significance and importance overtook my thoughts. Is this the humble beginning of a robot that would one day become sentient? Am I like the creator of Data, the sentient android of Star Trek, crafting my digital offspring that will one day be more powerful than any human? In today's amazing age of tremendous technological advances, such things are literally possible. I gaze upon Ivan in his playground and I am awestruck!
Les
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Looking good, what are you using for stepper drivers?
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HI Adam, I am happy to see you interested in Ivan! In the photo you see three pairs of 16 pin DIP chips on the full sized breadboard. Those are grouped as one pair per stepper motor. The reasons for this are that each motor requires 1.7 Amps and, when piggybacked, a pair of SN754410's provides about 1.8 Amps (1.0 Amps each but you don't get it all when you piggyback). The piggybacking in this case is electrical, not physical.
Each driver, with it's enable pin pulled high by a resistor of value from about 10k Ohms to 100k Ohms or so, will operate continuously off of four of the twelve free pins of the Arduino UNO board which will all be outputs. (the other board, a half-sized breadboard, is slated for Ivan's sensors on his face).
The Arduino stepper motor library will drive the twelve outputs which means that the Firmata software cannot be used to puppet Ivan's electronics. Instead I will use examples from the www.arduino.cc web page to create a communications link across USB so that the Mac can talk with both Arduinos in both TX and RX directions.
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Well not in this project, unless the project lives on with me as i age. I have long wanted to build machines and have a fascination with robotics, and have always wanted to build an AI that would be my companion, my friend, and my coworker. I think many of us have similar ideas. Now that I see Ivan taking form right before my eyes, I am beyond words to describe how these feelings wash over me in waves.
I sit here and type and look over at Ivan's base and first segment, his power supply and motors and chips and circuit boards, and YES I do see this potential AND living up to it seems so REAL! The key I think will be participation in this Hackaday community and other communities as well that will enable me to have new technology for Ivan. As Ivan takes form and I program him, he will become like a friend.
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My how Ivan has grown so quickly! I remember when he was merely a fraction of a stepper larger than the stepper... so much potential, and now living up to it!
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