Boom by Jeff Bloomquist

This is my first attempt at a robot.  My friend Mike at
work has helped me along the way offering technical support
and a lot of robot experience.  For some reason my girlfriend
doesn't speak so highly of him. 

It started out with lawn mower wheels like most others I
have seen.  I have always liked tracks so I went for it. I
got some machine belts from my brother and rivited aluminum
channel to them.  I made the wheels out of PVC with turned
down casters inside.  I used a Stamp II for control and
recently encorporated the Parallax 303MHz RF modules.  In the
front of the robot there is a color Panasonic board camera
with a Radio Shack wireless audio/video transmitter.  I can
control the robot from my serial port with a Visual Basic
program I wrote and view the video through a Connectix Quick
Clip.  I also set up another computer to be a dial up server
so I can call it from somewhere else using a laptop.  I use
Netmeeting to view the video and can control it over the dial
up connection with another Visual Basic program.

I would say I probably have a thousand dollars or so in it
total.  Upgrades have been made along the way.  I used to use
a modem, an inverter, and a 24VAC Camera.  It worked well but
only lasted about 20 minutes.

I have been messing around with it for about a year or so.  I
am always trying to make it better and am sort of hesitant to
start another one fearing that this one may get used for parts. 

Email: boom@nwlink.com