The robot currently requires two external devices: a USB I/O board and a PS/2 ball mouse. The thinking for the PS/2 mouse was to minimize development effort and use the PS2 port and hardware for support. This worked greatly, but now that the PS/2 ball mouse has, more or less, gone the way of the dodo bird, what do you do?

After the presentation at MIT on January 19, 2011, I did a follow-up presentation at the IEEE Automation group in New Hampshire on February 17 2011. This time the robot didn't suffer the wireless issues that it did previously.

Here's the presentation:Download

The group seemed generally interested. This was a great compliment as these guys are involved with this stuff all the time. It was a good talk. I think we'll see some robots being built soon!

Installing Linux onto a Flash card can be painfully slow. The way to work around this is to install into a VM and write the VM image to the Flash.

The important thing to notice is that the robot tracks straight. This means that the speed of each wheel is very tightly controlled.

The robot has something of a major overhaul since the initial build a few years ago, all the digital technology has been changed, the wheels have changed, and the software has had major rewrites.

Thursday February 17th, start at 6:30 pm with socializing/networking followed by a
presentation starting at 7pm

Where:

33 S Commercial St
Manchester, NH 03101