Contents
About the Author
Chapter 1: Assembling a Modular Robot
Chapter 2: Comparing Two Types of Homemade Motor Couplers and Common Errors to Avoid
Chapter 3: Making a Fixture and Drilling Solid Rods for a Coupler
Chapter 4: Finishing the Solid-Rod Motor Coupler
Chapter 5: Building a Motor Inside a Wheel
Chapter 6: Understanding the Standards and Setup for Electronic Experiments
Chapter 7: Creating a Linear Voltage- Regulated Power Supply
Chapter 8: Making Robot Power Supply Improvements
Chapter 9: Driving Miss Motor
And ….
Assembling a Modular Robot
This book was much more difficult to write than the first book, Robot Building for Beginners, Second Edition (Apress, 2010). In the first book, I assume the reader knows nothing about electronics or machining. That neatly limits the book’s subjects to the trunk of the “robot tree of knowledge .”
But a funny thing happens after that. Robots are so diverse in their capabilities and purposes that the robot tree of knowledge explodes with braches in all sorts of directions after you understand the basics .
Therefore, it’s impossible to select a single type of robot that all intermediate builders want to make. Upon being armed with (almost) enough knowledge, each builder is already heading down his or her own unique path. Therefore, this book is about how to grow a robot, not what type of robot to grow .
Building Modules
Rather than building a robot, build modules. Build power supply modules, motor driver modules, sensor modules, sound modules, and brain modules. After that, don’t build a robot—assemble a robot !
You achieve many benefits by assembling a robot from modules :
You can handcraft the modules you’re interested in, but purchase off-the-shelf modules for the ones you aren’t interested in (or for those modules that require professional quality for a certain critical aspect of the robot.
You can upgrade the robot by simply swapping out a module rather than replacing the entire robot .
You can replicate and reuse successful modules on other robots .
You can reduce the time from idea to outcome .
You can get a functional base going (gaining that feeling of accomplishment) and build it up from there. Many times the most ambitious projects lie in partially completed piles because they’re just too complicated to finish in one or two (or twenty) sittings