Nink

Canada

Asked Feb 2

Affordable Modular ARC Robotics Kit

Is it time for a new ARC compatible Robotics Kit? Most of us came across ARC back in the days of EZ-Robot. These are great robotic kits for schools and summer camps to teach kids robotics. The problem is the cost and availability. ARC now works with ESP32-CAM and PCA9685 controllers. Together these provide a lot of the functions of an EZ-B for around $5. So now using low cost servos like MG90S or other 9g servos you can build a bipod robot that works with ARC for under $50. Using a modular design the pieces could also be used to build other robots like Hexapods, Robotic Dogs, Rovers etc. ARC has all the functions built in to support a new robotics kit all we need to do is design the connectable servo casings, servo horns. body and other components for 3D printing. We could then provide the free 3D printable models and even make kits available for sale. ARC makes it easy to program, build and configure the robot and this would make robotics a low cost barrier of entry for students and still teach all the skills needed to learn basic robotics with all the features that now come with AI integration.

There are a bunch of opensource ESP / PCA based robots available that you can make work with ARC today, but I think a modular design that allows you to build a range of different robots that have pre programmed projects, scripts and build instructions available for ARC would be the best approach.

Anyone interested in working on something like this ?

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Nink

PRO

Canada

#49 Feb 12

Now I think about it I just clobbered ports D16 to D23 for my GPIO pins and ARC only supports up to 23 so I think we will just not be able to address GPIO Pins if we go that route. I guess we need more PWM ports to support say 4 boards D0 to D63 and then we can map everything after this D64 ....

fxrtst

PRO

USA

#50 Feb 12

Excellent work! Looking forward to what cha got!

Nink

PRO

Canada

#51 Feb 12

I am beginning to think we are going to need to design a custom robot controller board around the ESP32 S3 and PCA9685 PWM board. I took a look at what boards are out there and none really suit a general purpose robot controller like an EZB. With the ESP32 S3 CAM we don't have a lot of free GPIO ports (5 at most so we need to add an additional chip to handle more I/O

Amyone have a list of requirements for what we would need. I don't have the skills to design this but we can at least bread board it out and test it. When we have a spaghetti wired mess someone with some actual talent (Yo @Jeremie) could design the board.

So far I hear we need the following for enough power, sufficient ports and servo control

Microcontroller

ESP 32 S3 CAM with OV5640 Camera (Good quality, Auto focus, High Frame)

Servo Controller

PCA9685 Controller for 16 PWM Servos with ability to daisy chain more PCA9685 boards

GPIO Expander

MCP23017 add 16 additional GPIO ports to connect sensors buttons and other devices

Audio Output

MAX98357A to connect speaker and provide decent quality Audio

Power Management

IP2326 2S BMS to Charge Battery or at least a Buck Converter like MP1584EN for 5v for ESP / PCA etc

fxrtst

PRO

USA

#52 Feb 12

Yeah its def becoming a piece meal project. I think the S3s have a different chip set?! I think I read somewhere?! Anyways, by the time you have a new board designed and get it manufactured (small amounts or large quantities) you might have to shell out some $$$ to get it done and that defeats the purpose of a cheap controller. Although I think a controller and a camera for < $50 would sell well. The more you manufacture the cheaper they get. The board and camera would have to be less than $20 to manufacture and then mark up 2.5 x for a small profit.

I'm very happy with what DJ was able to do with the firmware. For robots that require more pins I think I can just run two set ups with a single computer with 2 wifi adapters. One ESP32 with a camera and 16 servos, then another ESP with support for another 16 servos. Load both into ARC and use the board picker drop down to control both boards per servo. That gives me 32 servos with a camera for about $35 (from amazon but, prolly even more savings from aliexpress). But we have no analog ports and no sound, but currently I can live with that limitation. Of course if you don't need a camera the sky is the limit, with ARCs support for other boards like Mega etc.

Nink

PRO

Canada

#53 Feb 13

Amazon guy didn't come yet anyway here is some files don't know if work good luck https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1fl0-Lxksui7KnooqFwIW3nDQTY9wWeZH?usp=drive_link

Nink

PRO

Canada

#54 Feb 13 — Edited Feb 13

Boards Arrived I made a couple of changes. It worked for me on D16 (Just select a different board on drop down in ARC). I ended up modifying DJ original file as my Dog Fork is Forked and need to clean it up. I think I set it to your arduino and pins and put it back in AP mode but just ping me on Discord if issues. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1fl0-Lxksui7KnooqFwIW3nDQTY9wWeZH?usp=drive_link

Sadly this works Servo.SetPosition(23, 180); but this does not Servo.SetPosition(24, 180); So even scripting we can't get passed PWM port limit. You have 8 ports you can not use.

If it doesn't work use this code to check it is seen by ESP


#define SDA_PIN 14
#define SCL_PIN 15

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(115200);
  delay(1500);

  Serial.println("\nI2C Scan Starting...");
  Wire.begin(SDA_PIN, SCL_PIN);

  byte found = 0;

  for (byte addr = 1; addr < 127; addr++) {
    Wire.beginTransmission(addr);
    if (Wire.endTransmission() == 0) {
      Serial.print("Found device at 0x");
      if (addr < 16) Serial.print("0");
      Serial.println(addr, HEX);
      found++;
    }
  }

  if (found == 0) {
    Serial.println("No I2C devices found.");
  }

  Serial.println("Scan complete.");
}

void loop() {}