Orbie Bot

My daughter came to me one night with one of her RC toys. She said she didn't use it that much so I could have it to build a robot. This is what she brought me and I had been wanting to make a robot for a while.

And this is what I turned it into.

It's a sonar sensing, object avoiding robot. It drives in a straight line until it finds an obstacle then it looks left and right and turns to whichever side is open. I also modified the code to have it back up a little before it scans left and right because it kept hitting the range sensor on the kitchen cabinets.

The Materials: 

1 x Mini Breadboard

1 x Arduino Uno

1 x Seeed Motor Shield

1 x Parallax Ping Sensor

1 x Micro Servo

1 x Orbiez Lady Bug

The Build:

     The first thing I did was strip everything off of the Orbiez except for the motors and the batteries. I tied the wires from the batteries to the motor shield input and removed the jumper. The batteries didn't have enough juice to run the motors and the board so I used a 9v battery to power the arduino. I also used a mini breadboard and some modified grove cables to connect everything. The seeed shield uses grove connections. They're the little 4 pin connectors. I connected the servo to pin 5 and the ping sensor to pin A1. I mounted the ping sensor on the longest arm that came with the micro servo and attached the servo to the front of the Orbiez with some two sided tape. The motors are connected to "Motor A" and "Motor B" on the shield. It doesn't really matter which is connected to which or if positive and negative get mixed up. I just ran the motor shield demo code to figure out what was what and then changed the different void sections to what was actually forward, backward, left and right. Here's the demo code.

//. Motor driver shield- 2012 Copyright (c) Seeed Technology Inc. // // Original Author: Jimbo.we // Contribution: LG // // This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or // modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public // License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either // version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. // // This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, // but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of // MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU // Lesser General Public License for more details. // // You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public // License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software // Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA int pinI1=8;//define I1 interface int pinI2=11;//define I2 interface int speedpinA=9;//enable motor A int pinI3=12;//define I3 interface int pinI4=13;//define I4 interface int speedpinB=10;//enable motor B int spead =127;//define the spead of motor void setup() { pinMode(pinI1,OUTPUT); pinMode(pinI2,OUTPUT); pinMode(speedpinA,OUTPUT); pinMode(pinI3,OUTPUT); pinMode(pinI4,OUTPUT); pinMode(speedpinB,OUTPUT); } void forward() { analogWrite(speedpinA,spead);//input a simulation value to set the speed analogWrite(speedpinB,spead); digitalWrite(pinI4,HIGH);//turn DC Motor B move clockwise digitalWrite(pinI3,LOW); digitalWrite(pinI2,LOW);//turn DC Motor A move anticlockwise digitalWrite(pinI1,HIGH); } void backward()// { analogWrite(speedpinA,spead);//input a simulation value to set the speed analogWrite(speedpinB,spead); digitalWrite(pinI4,LOW);//turn DC Motor B move anticlockwise digitalWrite(pinI3,HIGH); digitalWrite(pinI2,HIGH);//turn DC Motor A move clockwise digitalWrite(pinI1,LOW); } void left()// { analogWrite(speedpinA,spead);//input a simulation value to set the speed analogWrite(speedpinB,spead); digitalWrite(pinI4,HIGH);//turn DC Motor B move clockwise digitalWrite(pinI3,LOW); digitalWrite(pinI2,HIGH);//turn DC Motor A move clockwise digitalWrite(pinI1,LOW); } void right()// { analogWrite(speedpinA,spead);//input a simulation value to set the speed analogWrite(speedpinB,spead); digitalWrite(pinI4,LOW);//turn DC Motor B move anticlockwise digitalWrite(pinI3,HIGH); digitalWrite(pinI2,LOW);//turn DC Motor A move clockwise digitalWrite(pinI1,HIGH); } void stop()// { digitalWrite(speedpinA,LOW);// Unenble the pin, to stop the motor. this should be done to avid damaging the motor. digitalWrite(speedpinB,LOW); delay(1000); } void loop() { left(); delay(2000); stop(); right(); delay(2000); stop(); // delay(2000); forward(); delay(2000); stop(); backward(); delay(2000); stop(); }

Once I changed the right sections to forward, backward, left and right this is the code I ended up with.

The Final Code:

/* > Design an obstacle avoiding robot using an Arduino UNO and Parallax PING))) Ultrasonic Distance Sensor */ int pinI1=8;//define I1 interface int pinI2=11;//define I2 interface int speedpinA=9;//enable motor A int pinI3=12;//define I3 interface int pinI4=13;//define I4 interface int speedpinB=10;//enable motor B int spead =255;//define the spead of motor #include <Servo.h> const int pingPin = A1; const int dangerThresh = 5; //threshold for obstacles (in inches) int leftDistance, rightDistance; //distances on either side Servo panMotor; long duration; //time it takes to recieve PING))) signal void setup() { pinMode(pinI1,OUTPUT); pinMode(pinI2,OUTPUT); pinMode(speedpinA,OUTPUT); pinMode(pinI3,OUTPUT); pinMode(pinI4,OUTPUT); pinMode(speedpinB,OUTPUT); panMotor.attach(5); //attach motors to proper pins panMotor.write(100); //set PING))) pan to center } void backward() { analogWrite(speedpinA,spead);//input a simulation value to set the speed analogWrite(speedpinB,spead); digitalWrite(pinI4,HIGH);//turn DC Motor B move clockwise digitalWrite(pinI3,LOW); digitalWrite(pinI2,LOW);//turn DC Motor A move anticlockwise digitalWrite(pinI1,HIGH); } void forward()// { analogWrite(speedpinA,spead);//input a simulation value to set the speed analogWrite(speedpinB,spead); digitalWrite(pinI4,LOW);//turn DC Motor B move anticlockwise digitalWrite(pinI3,HIGH); digitalWrite(pinI2,HIGH);//turn DC Motor A move clockwise digitalWrite(pinI1,LOW); } void right()// { analogWrite(speedpinA,spead);//input a simulation value to set the speed analogWrite(speedpinB,spead); digitalWrite(pinI4,HIGH);//turn DC Motor B move clockwise digitalWrite(pinI3,LOW); digitalWrite(pinI2,HIGH);//turn DC Motor A move clockwise digitalWrite(pinI1,LOW); } void left()// { analogWrite(speedpinA,spead);//input a simulation value to set the speed analogWrite(speedpinB,spead); digitalWrite(pinI4,LOW);//turn DC Motor B move anticlockwise digitalWrite(pinI3,HIGH); digitalWrite(pinI2,LOW);//turn DC Motor A move clockwise digitalWrite(pinI1,HIGH); } void stop()// { digitalWrite(speedpinA,LOW);// Unenble the pin, to stop the motor. this should be done to avid damaging the motor. digitalWrite(speedpinB,LOW); delay(1000); } void loop() { int distanceFwd = ping(); if (distanceFwd>dangerThresh) //if path is clear { forward(); //move forward delay(100); } else //if path is blocked { stop(); delay(200); backward(); delay(500); stop(); panMotor.write(20); delay(500); rightDistance = ping(); //scan to the right delay(800); panMotor.write(180); delay(1000); leftDistance = ping(); //scan to the left delay(500); panMotor.write(100); //return to center delay(100); compareDistance(); } } void compareDistance() { if (leftDistance>rightDistance) //if left is less obstructed { left(); //turn left delay(550); } else if (rightDistance>leftDistance) //if right is less obstructed { right(); //turn right delay(550); } else //if they are equally obstructed { right(); //turn 180 degrees delay(1100); } } long ping() { // Send out PING))) signal pulse pinMode(pingPin, OUTPUT); digitalWrite(pingPin, LOW); delayMicroseconds(2); digitalWrite(pingPin, HIGH); delayMicroseconds(5); digitalWrite(pingPin, LOW); //Get duration it takes to receive echo pinMode(pingPin, INPUT); duration = pulseIn(pingPin, HIGH); //Convert duration into distance return duration / 74 / 2; }

     It's a pretty simple robot. You may need to adjust the delay sections to get it to turn the way you want it to and adjust the servo numbers to center it and adjust how far it looks to either side.

     I'll post a video when I get a chance so you can see it in action.  Here it is.