Intermediate Robot Building

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxxii

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2. Assembling a Modular Robot

   Pages 1-10

3. Comparing Two Types of Homemade Motor Couplers and Common Errors to Avoid

   Pages 11-21

4. Making a Fixture and Drilling Solid Rods for a Coupler

   Pages 23-47

5. Finishing the Solid-Rod Motor Coupler

   Pages 49-57

6. Building a Motor Inside a Wheel

   Pages 59-84

7. Understanding the Standards and Setup for Electronic Experiments

   Pages 85-106

8. Creating a Linear Voltage-Regulated Power Supply

   Pages 107-130

9. Making Robot Power Supply Improvements

   Pages 131-151

10. Driving Miss Motor

    Pages 153-182

11. Driving Mister Motor

    Pages 183-223

12. Creating an Infrared Modulated Obstacle, Opponent, and Wall Detector

    Pages 225-243

13. Fine-Tuning the Reflector Detector

    Pages 245-258

14. Roundabout Robot!

    Pages 259-294

15. Test Driving Roundabout

    Pages 295-317

16. If I Only Had a Brain

    Pages 319-347

17. Building Roundabout’s Daughterboard

    Pages 349-374

18. Adding the Floor Sensor Module

    Pages 375-397

19. Cooking Up Some Robot Stew

    Pages 399-427

20. Back Matter

    Pages 429-447

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For readers of Robot Building for Beginner (Apress, 2002 and 2009), welcome to the next level. Intermediate Robot Building, Second Edition offers you the kind of real-world knowledge that only renowned author David Cook can offer.

In this book, you’ll learn the value of a robot heartbeat and the purpose of the wavy lines in photocells. You’ll find out what electronic part you should sand. You’ll discover how a well-placed switch can help a robot avoid obstacles better than a pair of feelers. And you’ll avoid mistakes that can cause a capacitor to explode.

Want a robot that can explore rooms, follow lines, or battle opponents in mini-sumo? This book presents step-by-step instructions and circuit and part descriptions so that you can build the robot featured in the book or apply the modules to your own robot designs.

Finally, you’ll find the complete schematics for Roundabout, a room explorer that requires no programming and uses only off-the-shelf electronics. With Roundabout, you’ll use many of the same techniques used by professional robotics engineers, and you’ll experience many of the same challenges and joys they feel when a robot “comes to life.”

• Audio
• Internet
• electronics
• knowledge
• programming
• robot
• robotics

David Cook is an engineering manager at Motorola. He has 20 years of experience as a software developer, creating everything from award-winning computer games to mobile background-check applications for police. Self-taught in electronics and basic mechanics, David explains his years of robot experiences to the average backyard scientist in a comfortable and helpful manner, without scholarly intimidation. David hosts the popular robot site RobotRoom.com.

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