Wireless Arduino Esplora controls robotic head

This project expands on the XBee/Battery/Wireless Arduino Esplora project.  I motorized a robotic head on +hackfriday with an Arduino Uno and an +Adafruit motorshield.  I combine these projects today.

The Esplora sketch was modified to poll the joystick (4 directions) and the right button cluster.  When they are activated, an appropriate ASCII character is sent via serial to the XBee which sends it to the Uno which controls the head via a Motorshield.  An XBee shield (mine from iteadstudio, but there are many comparable ones from Sparkfun, etc.) only uses the hardware serial lines on D0 and D1 and power.  The Motorshield uses many digital pins but leaves D0/D1 free so the two shields stack without interference.

The robotic head is from +Mark Miller which comes with the head and base, two motors and two servos.

The Uno sketch takes the character and moves the appropriate motor (neck and chin) or stepper (eyes or mouth).

The code for the Esplora (EsploraXbeeRobot) and the Motorshield/head (BobSerial) is on GitHub for your downloading pleasure at https://github.com/TheKitty/EsploraSerial.

Youtube video of the project in action:


This is but one use for the Esplora as a controller.  You can expand this to make radio controlled vehicles, robots, mechanical arms, or mod your Furby for remote action.

Wiring up Bob the Robotic Head #hackfriday

No, I did not forgo Black Friday shopping altogether for Hack Friday (the new day which one spends hacking things together).  Shopping started at 7:30 Thanksgiving with a trip to Walmart and also some online shopping.

Hack Friday started a couple months ago buying a robotic head.  It comes with two servo motors and two electric motors.  About the same time I bought an Adafruit motor shield to control the head via an Arduino.  I have not had time to wire it up with other projects like the Cylon Pumpkin.  With Halloween over, I wanted to focus on the robot. Helping was receipt today of another Adafruit order from this past Sunday when they had a 10% off sale for Hack Friday.  Just in time!

The head is driven with the motor shield's two servo outputs and two of the four motor controllers.  For now, a potentiometer is read to control the motor and a rotary encoder, interrupt driven, selects which motor to control (could be done with 4 potentiometers possibly better).  The motor shield leaves enough Arduino pins free (all analog pins and digital pin 2 which is interrupt controllable).  Eventually the head will respond to sensors and possibly talk via an Emic speech board coming from a sale at Make.

Making the hookup much more enjoyable is my new Hakko soldering iron - near instant controlled heat, making the old Radio Shack model seem so 1976.

Happy Hack Friday!