Robotics Engineering Basic Maneuvers

Getting the Boe-Bot to Move One of the first tasks we need to do is to get our bots moving.One of the first tasks we need to do is to get our bots moving. The boe-bot can perform the 4 basic maneuvers (front, back, left right) an should be “dragging” the ball behind it when it is moving forward.The boe-bot can perform the 4 basic maneuvers (front, back, left right) an should be “dragging” the ball behind it when it is moving forward.

Moving Forward One of the interesting aspects of how the boe-bot moves is that it has to turn its wheels in opposite directions in order to move forward. The left side needs to move counterclockwise and the right side needs to move clockwise to move forward.

Pulsout Recall that the PULSOUT command takes a Pin and Duration argument to send pulses to the servos. We’re going to use a FOR..NEXT loops to control the number of pulses that are delivered and thus controlling how long the servo will run. Lets start by taking a look at a program that will make the bot roll forward for three seconds.

ForwardThreeSec DEBUG "Program Active!" counter VAR WORD FREQOUT 4, 2000, 3000'Signal program start FOR counter = 1 TO 122'Count of 122 is approximately 3 seconds PULSOUT 12,650 'Moves the left wheel counterclockwise PULSOUT 13,850 'Moves the right wheel clockwise PAUSE 20 NEXT END

More Maneuvers You can change how far the bot moves or turns by changing the FOR..NEXT loops EndValue arugment. You can change the PULSOUT command to cause the bot to go backwards, turn left and turn right. You can also change the PULSOUT command to make the bot go faster and slower. You can also make the bot turn by pivoting by keeping one wheel still as the other rotates.

Your Turn… Create your own program that has the bot travel forward for 3 seconds and save it as ForwardThreeSec.bas Create a program that makes the bot go forward, turn left ¼ turn, right ¼ turn and then backwards and save it as FowardLeftRightBackward.bas Create a program that does the same as FowardLeftRightBackward.bas but uses a pivot instead and save it as PivotTest.bas Experiment with modifications to these programs to make the bot move slower, turn farther, etc. Submit your three named files to the Dropbox when finished.