Hi,

I am new to robotics.

here is what I am looking at:
The robot I need to build is one that would be latched to a board. So
all its movements are within the perimeters of that board. The robot
should be able to move North, South, East, West, Up and Down. It would
have a arm that can lift and drop fixed size objects. It is not
necessary for the bot to visualize the object. Given the position of
the piece on the board it should be able to pick the object and over it
around. It should be possible to control the robot from a PC.

I was curious to know if it is possible to build a static robot as
described above?  In case it is possible then where can I get more
information to build the same?

-Steven

On 18 Jan, in article
     
     stevenadsouza@gmail.com "stevenadsouza@gmail.com" wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I am new to robotics.
>
>here is what I am looking at:
>The robot I need to build is one that would be latched to a board. So
>all its movements are within the perimeters of that board. The robot
>should be able to move North, South, East, West, Up and Down. It would
>have a arm that can lift and drop fixed size objects. It is not
>necessary for the bot to visualize the object. Given the position of
>the piece on the board it should be able to pick the object and over it
>around. It should be possible to control the robot from a PC.
>
>I was curious to know if it is possible to build a static robot as
>described above?  In case it is possible then where can I get more
>information to build the same?

I would suggest looking at an available kit to start with, depending
on the number of degrees of freedom you want.

Try www.google.co.uk with 'education robot arm' and you get many hits
one fo the first being

  <http://www.totalrobots.com/program_files/neuroarm.htm>

You will find the mechanics and tuning of motor control to be time consuming
especially for varying load conditions.

Depending how good you are at programming the PC side could take quite a
long time as well depending on how pretty you wanted it.
 
-- 
Paul Carpenter          | paul@pcserviceselectronics.co.uk
<http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/>    PC Services
<http://www.gnuh8.org.uk/>              GNU H8 & mailing list info
<http://www.badweb.org.uk/>             For those web sites you hate

Steve,

I presume you thinking about an X-Y table with a Z for object pickup rather 
than looking for something more like an arm?

Any idea of size & shape of object to pickup?

It just needs a little thought. Google may help if you think about your 
search but you may not find what your looking for off the shelf (home work 
is a good thing!). 

regards,
colin

--

 http://www.minisumo.org.uk/forum/

Hi Colin,

> Steve,
>
> I presume you thinking about an X-Y table with a Z for object pickup rather
> than looking for something more like an arm?

My curiosity for building a product landed me here. I am novice to
robotics. I am looking for an robotic arm structure that resembles
close to human arm. I particularly interested in using this as a
entertainment robot. Right now I want to prototype the product idea. I
am looking out for cheap kit that I could program and do some
feasibility study.

Are there any links, books that I could help?

> Any idea of size & shape of object to pickup?

The shape of the object is irregular, but solid(not something like a
tea-cup, I mean no hollows). Do existing entertainment/hobby robotic
arms pick irregular solid objects with precision?

> It just needs a little thought. Google may help if you think about your
> search but you may not find what your looking for off the shelf (home work
> is a good thing!).

I have been through the excercise of searching information using google
but have hit very few relevant links.

> regards,
> colin
> --
>  http://www.minisumo.org.uk/forum/

-Steven