Minimal Bot by Edward Rupp

This is Minimal Bot.  It's is my third robot and was built in a 
weekend to experiment using the 16C84 single chip computer.  
The idea was to see if it was possible to use direct drive stepper 
motors. The robots behavior is very simple.  It simply keeps moving forward 
until the feeler's touch a object, the robot then backs up and turns 
away from the object and proceeds to wander forward.  The Pic was 
programmed using JAL (Just Another Language)  A free basic like 
language.  The body is made of expanded vinyl plastic that is cut on 
my home made CNC.  The plastic is then lightly heated and bent in 
box and pan break.  Thus the platform can be quite complex in shape 
but be made out of only one peace.  The PC board is also made by the 
CNC.  The board is a generic proto design, all traces are cut the by 
the CNC, along with the holes and the board outline.  Total cost was 
probably 15 to 20 dollars.  Most of the stuff was junk parts and the 
only new parts were the wheels and the H bridge chips.


Edward Rupp
Loveland Colorado USA


Email: Edwardrupp@netzero.net