Here’s a vid of a hamster, in a hamster ball, controlling a iRobot Create.
The hamster controls the robot by running in the ball in whatever direction he/she likes. The ball is supported on three rollers and an optical sensor measures which way and how fast the ball is spinning. Those values are fed into a microprocessor that controls the drive wheels to make the robot mimic the motion of the ball.
4 thoughts on “Hamster-controller iRobot Create”
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Kudos!! I’ve always absolutely adored this sort of idea. Saw a bot controlled by a goldfish somewhere once, I believe.
I’d really like to see this same project with omni-directional wheels (think wowee rovio, etc.) I think that not having to have the robot turn to a specific heading and then move foreward would work wonders in translating the hamster’s movements to robot movement more naturally. Whenever the little critter changes course, subtly or dramatically, the whole robot stops and rotates rather than just adjusting, due to the limitations of the platform.
Benny Hillified:
http://james.nerdiphythesoul.com/bennyhillifier/?id=doQvWsJRCPs&eurl=file:///C:/Documents%20a