Pololu Blog (Page 86)

Welcome to the Pololu Blog, where we provide updates about what we and our customers are doing and thinking about. This blog used to be Pololu president Jan Malášek’s Engage Your Brain blog; you can view just those posts here.

Popular tags: community projects new products raspberry pi arduino more…

Homemade Segway-like personal transport

Posted by Ryan on 21 April 2011

Our High-Power Motor Drivers are used to drive the motors in this homemade Segway-like personal transport by Hans Michael Steiner.

Sound-Following 3pi Robot

Posted by Ben on 6 April 2011

This sound-following 3pi robot uses three Electret microphone breakout boards and two 74HC4052 multiplexers. Here is a video of the robot in action:

For more details, see this thread on the Pololu forum.

Waiter Robot

Posted by Ben on 28 March 2011

Waiter Robot can make a “Robot Bar” for your next exhibition, show, private event, or sales promotion. They use Pololu 3pi Robots to deliver food and drinks in an remarkable way. Update: The original site for this project is no longer accessible, so we have removed the link.

BrewMon: Orangutan SVP beer-brewing monitor

Posted by Ryan on 17 March 2011

A temperature probe, a battery pack, and a Pololu Orangutan SVP-324 Robot Controller are used to make BrewMon, a beer-brewing monitor.

Micromouse 3pi Robot Video

Posted by Ben on 10 March 2011

This video shows a heavily-modified 3pi that uses distance sensors and encoders along with a flood-fill algorithm to find the shortest path through a walled Micromouse maze. The robot is described in more detail in this forum post.

Simple microcontroller approach to controlling a servo

Posted by Jan on 10 March 2011
Simple microcontroller approach to controlling a servo

Today, I want to discuss the microcontroller equivalent of the simple servo control circuit I presented last time. As I mentioned then, the circuit is about as simple as it can be, yet it requires eight components to arrive at a sub-optimal servo control waveform. Some of its deficiencies, such as the slow rise time of the pulses, can be addressed by slightly more advanced circuits that might implement an astable multivibrator using an integrated circuit such as the famous 555 timer. In terms of part count, the 555-based servo controller might be a bit better than the two-transistor approach, but the 555 has many transistors inside it. As long as we are comfortable categorizing a component with many transistors inside it as a single part, we might as well skip the 555 and go straight to a low pin-count microcontroller, which has thousands of transistors inside it and which will allow us to make a far superior, single-component servo controller. Continued…

Simple hardware approach to controlling a servo

Posted by Jan on 23 February 2011
Simple hardware approach to controlling a servo

For the last several posts, I have been writing about how hobby servos work and demonstrating the operation of devices made for controlling servos, such as RC receivers and serial servo controllers. That should have given you a good idea of the kinds of control signals we must create if we are to control servos with our own hardware. Today, I am moving on to the subject of controlling servos ourselves, and I will begin with a simple hardware approach. Continued…

Only5 - general-purpose, high-performance robot

Posted by Ryan on 21 February 2011

Only5 is designed to be a general-purpose, high-performance robot. It uses many Pololu parts including the Pololu 5" Robot Chassis RRC04A and the Baby Orangutan robot controller. For more information see the project page.

Here is a short video showing its impressive speed:

Instructable Groovin' Grover: a microcontroller-based marionette

Posted by Ryan on 14 February 2011

Groovin’ Grover is a marionette manipulated by four hobby servos and a Pololu Maestro servo controller. You can control each of Grover’s limbs independently and make him walk, wave, and – most entertainingly – make him dance. Groovin’ Grover is easy to assemble and wire up. This Instructable explains how to build your own Groovin’ Grover.

New Products

Zumo 2040 Robot (Assembled with 50:1 HP Motors)
Graphical OLED Display: 128x64, 1.3", White Pixels, SPI, Black PCB
3pi+ 2040 Robot Kit with 75:1 LP Motors (Turtle Edition Kit)
Motoron M3H550 Triple Motor Controller Kit for Raspberry Pi
6V, 3.3A Step-Down Voltage Regulator D30V30F6
12V, 2.5A Step-Up/Step-Down Voltage Regulator S13V25F12
Zumo 2040 Robot (Assembled with 75:1 HP Motors)
ACS724 Current Sensor Carrier 0A to 20A
3pi+ 2040 Robot Kit with 30:1 MP Motors (Standard Edition Kit)
Motoron M1T550 Single I²C Motor Controller
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