the old palm pilot you have could also be used as the brains for a nifty little holonomic drive robot. the palm pilot robot kit was created several years ago by the carnegie mellon toy robots initiative. that would be the same research group that came up with the bow powered pogo stick.
The Palm makes a handy robot controller: it packs a lot of computational power in a small size, runs on batteries, and best of all, can display graphics and an interactive user interface. Our robot empowers a Palm to move about and sense the nearby environment.
speaking of palm hacks, sean russell sent me this link after reading the palm lcd display article. make sure to check that out as well if you are interested in dusting off your old palm device.
I built one of these a few years ago..its aight…nothing tooo cool
Great post! I’ve actually spent the last week or so trying to figure out how to develop software on a palm (using the GNU tools) and use the serial port for sensors and motor control. I’ve finally figured out how to talk to a control board and store information using the palmos’s data manager but I’d like to eventually incorporate additional serial devices (e.g., a GPS receiver, additional control boards, etc…). Is there any easy way to do this? Is it possible to hack the IR port to make it work as an additional serial port? Is there an easy to build multiplexer out there? Thanks
I want one of these but I can never figure out what it can do besides bounce around
cool wheels in the pic
“speaking of palm hacks, sean russell sent me this link ” —> What link???
Alot of this robotics stuff was popular during the “Robot Warts” era of the late 90’s.
Much of this stuff, as well as the microcontroller stuff kind of faded back since then.
I’m glad it’s being kept alive.
If anyone’s interested in an easier programming environment for the Palm that you could use for projects like this check out Plua: http://netpage.em.com.br/mmand/plua.htm . Much simpler to develop user interfaces and supports serial and infrared communications.
And you can hack the code right on the Palm!
can anyone tell me how to get the robot to move forward. i just want it to move to a wall and come back. it doesn’t have to turn around. I have some code written, but i keep getting a error that i have the wrong data type in the SendCommand function where i am sending it command strings to move. can anyone help me?
I have both a pocket pc 3955 and and older pocket pc that I bought for dirt cheap because it has to completly broken screen. I always wanted to do something with the broken one like drive a small robot. the hard part is setting it up with no screen (maybe there is a way to sync it with linux like ive seen before and then telnet in). if anyone has any info that could help please drop me a line at sirus20x6 at gmail
The processor chip is tagged as somewhat more recent model number however it and also the GPU are most likely the similar speed as the 3GS. The old Contact with the similar Processor and GPU as the 3G was quicker. Apart from having the clock pace turned up higher the Contact has much less software to run because it�s not a phone. It ought to do better than any iPhone to this day in overall performance.