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Spybots
Adam from United States  [9 posts]
17 year
I remembered I have a lego spybotics set lying in my basement and was wondering if it is possible to control it with Roborealm.
Anonymous 17 year
Interesting thought ... but after checking out the spybots a little it seems that they need to be cable connected to a PC (so you would be restricted in how far and mobile the spybot is) and its not clear that they have an immediate command mode (i.e. PC sends commands, robot executes and then waits for next command). What has your experience been with these robots? Can you remote control them from your PC? I.e. do you have a move left, move right, etc type buttons?

It may be possible to interface them but we're not sure if that would be useable??

STeven.
Adam from United States  [9 posts] 17 year
Well nothing in the software that comes with it allows you to enter any sort of direct mode.  The cable is kind of weird though.  It sends programs to the robot using blinking LEDs.  That type of communication might not be fast enough anyway.  That's fine though, I was thinking about getting the new NXT, but I heard it was really kiddy. Is that true?  If so, do you know where I can still pick up 2.0 for cheap?

off topic: I found two more bugs that you might want to investigate further.  Both involve cropped images.  One is when cropping an image and then writing it to a file (may apply to avi files as well but haven't tested it).  The other is cropping an image and then a center of gravity with overlay graphics on source turned on.

Thanks Steve.
Spybots
Anonymous
17 year
Adam,

Sounds like the Spybots would be problematic to control. If they do use LED's to send the program then it is most likely an IR type transmission which may not be too slow but as they appear to be a program only type of robot they will probably not be good functioning as drones.

The Lego NXT system is certainly meant for kids but it has the basics of a good robotics system. We've been quite happy with working with it for our experiments. So while the construction materials (Lego type pieces) are not the best for constructing a solid reliable industrial system they work very nicely for 'toying' with robotic structures. I'd definitely recommend that system for anyone starting out in robotics or for more software oriented folks that just need to get something working to experiment with. Unfortunately we don't keep track of how sells the cheapest versions .. but perhaps eBay may have a couple going for less.

Thanks for the bug report. The two you mentioned have been fixed and uploaded to the website. If you want you can re-download RoboRealm and unzip over your current setup.

Thanks!

STeven.
Adam from United States  [9 posts] 17 year
STeven thanks for the advice on NXT.  I am not looking for industrial strength, but I need something a little more powerful.  Following the link in your resources section, (which is really helpful, thanks for providing it) I found budget robotics.  They offer scooterbot which can be found here: http://www.budgetrobotics.com/shop/?shop=1&cat=35&cart=367657
I don't know much about robots yet, and from your experience, does that look like a good shell?
I was thinking about getting OOpic board to control it, because budget robotics recommends that.  Do you have any other suggestions?  I have a laptop computer by the way, so would it be easier to use something like that?
Anonymous 17 year
Adam,

The platform they offer looks really solid. As we've not actually purchased that one we can't offer much more than that. Keep in mind that this unit is direct servo drive so you may not be able to put too much weight (i.e. like a laptop) ontop of the base unless they use the strong .. but if you're going to be using OOpic that shouldn't be a problem. We don't have much experience in OOpic tech ... that's probably a good question for the comp.misc.robotics newsgroup. We do know that they have a strong following and are well regarded in the robotics community.

If you're in the market also have a look at http://www.leafproject.org/ who have built a lot of laptop based robots ... but they do tend to be large robots .. may have trouble passing them off as furniture if you don't have the room!

Good luck!
STeven.

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