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Posted by Joe Strout on November 8, 2005, 1:58 pm
I'm a complete newbie to robotics, so please be kind and use small
words. :)
I've just recently discovered Gumstix, makers of tiny little one-board
computers that run Linux, and wondered about their applications to hobby
robotics. In particular, there is a "robostix" version which is only
$50 (or $40 without connection headers):
http://www.gumstix.com/spexExpnsion.html#robo
This sports an I2C interface, which I also just learned about this week
(remember, I'm the newbie). It seems like you could take one of these
$50 computers, string together some I2C sensors and motors, program the
whole thing in Linux, and have a complete solution that's both cheaper
and way more powerful than, say, an RCX brick or Handyboard.
I'm wondering if anybody here has any thoughts about this approach. One
concern I have is whether jumping on the I2C bandwagon is going to make
for expensive robots -- it seems like all the I2C gadgets I can find are
made by Devantech, and those guys aren't cheap.
Their dual motor driver is $102, for example; if I can't do better than
that then I'd be better off buying an extra RCX brick for every three
motors I want to control. It also seems to a bit over-engineered too,
with RC inputs and so on; I wonder if there are cheaper I2C motor
controllers elsewhere.
But enough from me... what do y'all think?
Thanks,
- Joe
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| Joseph J. Strout Check out the Mac Web Directory: |
| joe@strout.net http://www.macwebdir.com |
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