Hey all. I was really excited when my EZ-B arrived about a week ago. While it was on its way I was searching around for my first project. Thanks to DJ's great website and Ebay I found what I wanted. I picked up a RAD 2.0 for 15 bucks. It did not have any remote or battery charger (so what). And today I started on it! I hope to post my progress here and open to any ideas you all might have. As you can see I wasted no time before I opened it up!
The RAD 2.0 has what looks like a decent track base with motors and gear boxes (a bit loud when I tried out the motors). It has a physical gearbox selector switch for High and Low gearing (I will need to put a servo on that) which will be cool to mess with. The interesting thing about this guy is that he bends at the waist. He also has two arms that work together to grasp an object. It looks like can bend all the way over and pick up an object on the floor (we shall see). After opening it up I noticed it appears to be a decent thing to start modding.
I have an H bridge on the way for the track motors and I probably going to need another if I want to use the existing motors that control the waist and arm movements. I am thinking of putting in a accelerometer as well so when the bot goes up or down hills it could stabilize itself automatically! It will surely have a distance sensor...just not sure where to put it yet, camera, and probably go with an MP3 trigger. You may notice the circle on his chest...The original toy was remote control and could fire nerflike darts (pretty neat). Not sure I will keep that functionality as I am thinking of other cool gadgets to hook up to him. Tonight I tackled the head movement.....I will post more on that later.....
Kevin
Other robots from Synthiam community
Laurin's My Head Designed For Jd
Urbanh's Target Bot
Well Deserved "Hack a Day" Kevin!!!!!
Thanks folks! I was certainly surprised. DJ got a well deserved 'Shout Out' too!
@robotmaker,
I used the TCP/IP interface DJ added into ARC. I could have gone the long way around and worked and interface with his SDK but ARC has so much good stuff I did not want to mess with it. So I started with a Python client script to send commands to ARC which works well if you use something like Eventghost (has python built into it). The video shows my home automation software which is called Housebot by Cebotics. I have been using Housebot for a few years now. Housebot is good by itself but can run vb scripts and you can make customized plugins...so i found a plugin from the Housebot forum and modified it to be a TCP client for ARC. I don't have everything where I want it yet...but getting there. DJ has VBscript in ARC and that would probably be a more direct interface to Housebot (so long as they run on the same computer I think). So far have not got the VBscript in ARC working.
I have a little more detail on my website that I have just started throwing together:
EDGAR Home Page
I love the AI ideas.....that would be the coolest!
v/r
Kevin
it's great to see people modding RAD's...we've got so many of those bots, we tend to like RAD 2 for the ears, we call him demon bot around the office
oh the RADs are coming and so are their parts, if you're looking for any RAD's just click the contact link on the website and we'll get someone to post them for you.
@robotmaker.....thanks dude...i will be checking those.....sounds like some great stuff!
We're selling off our RAD's and we have several different models, so if any of you are looking for one, register at www.robots-suck.com, click the contact link at the bottom of the home page, and tell us which RAD you're looking for, whether you care if it's working or not, etc. and someone will get a price and info to you.
hi Kevin i got a RAD 2.0 like your from a thrift store $12.00 with good battery no remote ,witch is good dont need it hopping to start on it soon using some of your info first working on my ROOMBA design,waiting on a few sensors and my decks to come in thrift store is a great place to pick up working or non working robots for hacking
robot-sucks how come you dont have them listed on your main website the rads you have,like to see prices and pictures