Modifications For The Adventure Bot Please Help Us Program This ;)
We are completely new to actually building EZ-Robots. My 7 year old son has been fascinated with them for probably about a year on Youtube. To try and encourage his love of ez-robots we bought the adventure bot for his birthday. My sister in law bought some extra parts because lets face it she wanted to win the "Best aunt" award. So she bought him the ultrasonic distance sensor and the LED block. Now we are struggling where to even begin after figuring out how to build the Adventure bot, attach the "extras", charge the batteries....we have no clue where or how to even begin programming this project. So much that the bot has been sitting for about 2 weeks! We want to encourage him but we are going to need the help of anyone who could tell us if this is even possible? We need help because the next project is to try and build him his own Wall-E bot! YES, we are crazy! stress
The simple way is by buying this, and switching out the bad one for this, but lets see if we can figure out what went wrong.
Make a new ARC project. Add a continuous rotation servo control(not the movement panel). Press the gear icon, click the servo port box and select the port the servo is plugged into. Then save and get back to the normal project screen. Now press the left and right buttons on the control and see if the servo moves. If not, try changing the port the servo is plugged into, change the control to that servo, and make sure it is plugged in the right way(black on black). If it still won't move, its probably shot.
Edit: Alan! Just a little faster than me!
Alan
Thanks for ideas. Have been trying to figure out Six today and having hard time getting it to charge...ugh if it isn't on thing it is another. Thankfully kiddo got Mip so while I test and try to figure out next step he at least can be working with him.
Update we have wheel fixed, (thanks Alan!) new lever servo attached but now we need help with making the servo work so the camera will move up and down. I am guessing I will need to make a mobile app but not sure how exactly to add servo to the mobile app. Will it automatically recognize that it is hooked up, will we need to do anything with the servo profiles. TechGuru and WSB you guys always come through for us so maybe you can help us out. I need to watch the making a mobile app video again since it has been a while. Right now my little builder is so happy to have his Ez robots out and ARC going again! Thanks for your help!
Nope, the app will not automatically recognize the new servo. The good news is that is it really easy to add.
I take it you have already done a mobile app for the Adventure Bot since he is using that to control it now?
All the following has to be done on the computer.
Regardless, you just go to the second virtual desktop (Window tab or F11) in the ARC program for the Adventure Bot. There you'll see the basic mobile app window. Click on the gear icon in the upper left to go into edit mode. On the left you will see a number of controls that can be used with the mobile app. Scroll down to the bottom and you will see one called "Add servo Slider." Click on it and it will appear at the top left. Drag it to where you want it to be (just below the movement controls is probably good).
Then you need to setup the values for the component. They are displayed on the right.
The servo Port will be the port to which you attached the servo that moves the camera.
The min and max should be set up for safety for this first pass. You don't want the servo slamming the camera down on the bot when it starts up or is moved by the slider. That can all too easily happen. So, on this first pass at it, you should set the min and max to +- 10 degrees. That means set the Min Value to 80 and the Max Value to 100. The straight up position is 90 degrees. That's the position as seen in the picture you posted.
Save your work (Save on bottom left)
If you're not connected to the Adventure Bot, do so now. You should be able to control it from your newly edited mobile app from your computer. Moving the slider should move the new servo.
Now you can adjust the Min Value and Max Value numbers to make the camera move the amount you wish it to.
That's it. Once you're satisfied with how it works, follow the procedures to upload it to the cloud and then down to your phone. And away it goes.
Awesome thanks! Will get that going tonight with him! He will love it.
Alright we tried tonight with the mobile app. We normally just use DJs premade app when he wants to use my phone to drive it arround. We have tinkered with making a mobile app but normally have only partial success.
Tonight he was so excited to make his "first app" He has helped me in the past but he really wanted to start from the begining with a brand new app made by him. The problem is he also decided to move the lever servo and reconfigure his robot again. Always trying new things and he wants his adventure bot to wave. Great in theory but it changes things a bit. Long story short. His new app is set up and the camera works just fine but for some reason the movement arrows are not working. We didn't even go back and add his other parts we added previously. (Laptop shut down on us ugh!) Do I have to send it to my cloud before that function works or did we miss something?
Will have to try again tomorrow night so any new suggestions are welcome.
Not quite sure I get what you are asking, but yes, any changes made from the desktop need to be saved to the cloud and thwn updated or downloaded to the phone.
You can have multiple projects saved on your desktop and on the cloud and it is a good idea to make one with a different name if you are making big changes so you can easily revert.