Asked — Edited

Need Suggestion On Using Ez-B Kit

Hey guys,

I'm very excited waiting for my kit to arrive however after reading and watching the tutorial videos im still confused on how to get started. There are things that are a bit too advance to understand so I don't know where to start so I can get a feel of how the software and everything work. Does anyone have any suggestion on how to get started on building my first robot using EZ-B? is there a simple bot that I can build using just the parts of the kit? what would be the first thing I need to do when i first get the kit? I have one in mind that want to build, a simple bot with wheels that can autonomously navigate by itself with obstacle avoidance, face and color tracking. I'm completely new at this so any help would be greatly appreciated.


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#1  

My sugestion is to get some foam board and hot glue from the dollar store. Glue the two modified servos in the kit to the foam board and attach the small wheeels in the kit. Use rubberbands to hold the interface board and battery pack. Instant robot. Start by learning how to control servos. Then play with the camera. Next play with the sound and speech synethus. By this time you will have learned how to write scripts. Where are you located? Any robot clubs by you?

#2  

LT, Have you seen this:

box bot

I don't think DJ ships the EZB in that box any more but hopefully you will get the idea. Best of luck and welcome to the board.

#3  

I would go with a simple and cheap bot like this : Disney Pixar Toy Story 3 Basic Action Figure - Robot

User-inserted image

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3916052

I believe its a good and cheap bot to start off with the basics, for example:

  1. you could put continous rotating servos on the tracks to move forward, backwards and left/right
  2. you could add small servos to move the arms up and down.
  3. you could put a camera in it chest amd a sensor in its eye piece or vise versa
  4. you could put a small servo in the neck to move the head5
  5. if you feel adventurous, you may want to try servos to get the claw moving.
  6. add so speakers to add voice and sounds voice recognitipon
  7. its just endless.....lol

and after you got a bit of experience in cutting, glueing and working with the EZ-B... I say go and Hack this: I think this is sooooo Bad Ass . I like to build one

good luck and I hope the video gets you siked!

#4  

I agree with antguru .You can use stir sticks or popsicle sticks too. Hot glue a bunch of stuff together and play around with the EZ-B and software .:)

#5  

Thanks for all the great suggestions. I think i will go with the boxbot as it's simple to start with and i have a similar box laying around here and all the tools needed. What i was more concern with is where to begin in the ARC software like setting up the wheel servos, camera, senor and how to make it autonomous instead of controlling from a PC and switching between modes.

#6  

@TL, Start with the wheels and plug the continuous wheel servos into the two EZB digital ports, go to the software and on the" add control" pull down select servo, then modified movement servo panel. Hit config, put the the digital ports you put the servos into and wa la, you have a moving robot. The rest is just as simple. The autonomous-ness comes from the sensors and camera. Just plug them in and config the correct" Add Controls" and you are there. You should be up and running in no tme. EZB does it all!! It is so simple even I have done it. You can even start before you get your EZB. Download the software and start doing it. If you have trouble with an "Add Control" there is a ? in the upper right corner of each that will help you through it. And if worst comes to worst there is alway us.

#7  

@Bookmaker, Thanks for the step by step instruction. I appreciate it, im really eager to see what I can do with all of this once I understand all the functions. Is adding voice to the robot that can talk back to you and do something base on some preset phrases (speak and response sequence) something we can do with the EZ-B? am i getting ahead of myself? im just having all kind of ideas right now. Anyone own iPhone 4S here? there is a really cool voice command feature named Siri in there. I want to put that into a robot:)