RENEE L. GLINSKI
loves bringing life to robots of all kinds! Robotics, engineering, prototyping, and programming are just a few of her obsessions. Follow her at youtube.com/LoveRoboticsEngineering or instagram.com/roboempress.
Mine is called EddiePlus. He’s rechargeable, Wi-Fi-enabled, and remote controlled, and he’s an open source project, so anyone can build him in a weekend or two. He can even be navigated completely out of sight, for 1 hour of drive time, via an FPV (first-person view) camera.
I built my first Eddie just for fun and as an excuse to put my Intel Edison Compute Module to good use. As a customer eagerly awaiting the Edison release, I was excited to have a project planned before my order arrived. The Edison’s low power draw and tiny footprint make it a great fit for small, battery-powered projects that need a lot of processing power. I was also excited to try SparkFun’s Edison Blocks — modular boards that stack onto the Edison to provide functions like motor control and power management.
A blast from the past: I was 10 years old back in the early 90’s. My most remembered robot from those days was mostly wooden framed and made from salvaged everything. I remember making it to the Florida state science fair after class, school and regional. This bot was humanoid but rolled on wheels, training wheels from old bikes, in fact. Pseudo circuits were built from HVAC foil tape and things like old cassette decks that had lots of switches used for input. On one of the arms there was a, now infamous, robot claw pincher arm that was modified and used to shake people’s hands. Some people would mischievously receive a mild shock from a step up transformer and a small voltage source that I had wired inside the claw. Thankfully I did get nicer as I grew up.
Now Eddie is back and he’s excited to show off his improvements. EddiePlus has a cleaner look and vastly improved performance. He’s got all the original features, plus new motor encoders, dynamic balance, dual PID control on each wheel, and faster motors and bigger wheels for more speed. His design has been updated to add interchangeable heads and a “backpack” enclosure to keep the electronics safe.
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