again

I'm moving my blog to Blogger. See http://d33z.blogspot.com/ for updated posts.

the frame is mostly complete

The robot frame is complete enough to stick most of the components on. It is currently lacking mounting positions for batteries, controllers, and cameras. This post is to help me keep a rough tally on costs.

This thing is starting to get expensive.

Already spent:

Motors - Free with some labor

Steel - $20 in square tube

Steel - $15 in flat plates

Bolts - $30 in misc bolt/washer packages

R/c Radios - Free from older projects

Wire - Had solder and some wire from previous projects

Need to spend:

Cameras - 2x at about $35

Batteries - 2x at about $90

Controller - 1x Arduino $30 + 1x $250 2ch 50a pwm controller

Wire - $? Going to need heavy guage wire and connectors later

Bumpers - Switches or Sonar?

to mow my yard for me

My latest project involves a lawn mower and a pair of electric motors. I intend mow my yard via remote control by this summer, and hope to have an autonomous mower by next year.

So far, the recycled mowing chassis has been stripped to bare metal and the frame is almost complete. I hope to have the motors attached soon.

To test the control software for the robot, I am setting up player/stage environment. This allows me to simulate various environmental conditions and observe the behaviour of the code that is intended for the real robot. The installation was a bit of trouble, but I eventually got things to work by following this guide.

0-9-1-almost-alpha is the version name

My name is Daniel Epperson, and this is a blog. The web application that powers this blog was written by me from scratch as an exercise in learning about python web applications and google app engine. This is a pre-alpha release, so there could will be some remaining bugs, etc.

Currently the blog supports adding/editing/removing blog entries, blog entries rss feed, adding blog images, global css editor, and customizable header/footer sections. The next feature that I am working on will be adding/editing/removing static HTML pages, and possibly a way to list the static pages from the homepage.

The source code remains private while I work through some final feature additions and testing. Once releasable, the code will be available on google code under a creative commons share alike license.