[Lars Kristian Roland] is using a wristwatch to control this rover. The bot itself is a utilitarian build with a gripper based on this Thingiverse project. As you can see in the video after the break, it’s got variable speed control based on accelerometer data from a TI ez430 Chronos wristwatch.
The watch connects to the bot wirelessly thanks to a CC1110 development board which relays communications to the on-board Arduino through a serial connection. It looks like it’s a bit of a bother to make slow and precise movements using this setup, but this can probably be changed by tweaking how accelerometer values are interpreted (using a non-linear equation would allow you more control at low speeds without sacrificing top speed for the motors).
Because this is using the same RF hardware that the IM-ME does, we can’t help but wonder if the CC1110 development board could be swapped out for an unused IM-ME dongle?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhE8F9rWmAg&w=470]
[Thanks Hugo]
The tilt control is neat but it seems really hard to control. Throw on one of these:
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9032
And I bet you would see a huge increase in controllability.
Really cool use of reprap/makerbot/RP. Love to see people prototyping useful things
In fukisima 1 they would need a army of those robots :)
This could actually have some rescue applications. Little robots like this can work together to drag a person who can’t move, swarms like this have already been demonstrated. Making them printable means they’ll be easy to replace or make more as necessary, as long as you have spare electronics for each one.
Here’s another quick but reasonably advanced Hello World example for the eZ430 watch, that deals with how to display some scrolling text on the watch itself:
http://trandi.wordpress.com/2011/09/03/ti-ez430-watch-unbox-hworld/
Dan